


Marvellous & Mundane

by oosans



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Mechanics, M/M, Teacher Park Seonghwa, mechanic choi san, mechanic kim hongjoong, no angst in this house we stan happiness right from the get-go, now get ready for: LIGHT SPEED BURN, photography student jung wooyoung, this is almost like little snippets?? ig, this is pure garbage i am SO SORRY, we also kinda accidentally got: exhibitionism, we got: happy endings, we got: mingi and yeosang being domestic, we got: poorly written handjobs and grinding, we got: seongjoong in the background, you've heard of fast burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:34:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22862599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oosans/pseuds/oosans
Summary: San becomes as much of a habit as brushing his teeth three times a day and changing camera lenses when he finally gets out of the city is.[Wooyoung first sees San in low lighting across the bar in a gay club. The second time, he sees him in the pouring rain. Both seem as cliche as the other, but that doesn't stop them from falling (hard)].[under editing uwu]
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Side Kang Yeosang/Song Mingi, side Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 21
Kudos: 359





	Marvellous & Mundane

**Author's Note:**

> im sorry. NOT EDITED AT ALL. SORRY BRO

Wooyoung’s confidence comes and goes.

One minute, he’ll be dying his hair magenta pink and wearing lime green overalls to class, and in the next, he’ll be cowering away in the canteen because the barista looked at him for one second longer than she usually did. He’ll check the mail in his underwear but refuse to answer the phone; will speak openly of his sexuality at club meetings with his best friend Yeosang, but would stutter and blush when anyone new tried to talk with him. Eye contact was out of the question, so Wooyoung had an intimate relationship with the space between his lecturers’ eyebrows, and Mingi says the only kind of romantic relationship he’s ever been in is the one he has with his ear phones: which is to say, not at all, because he either breaks or loses his pair every other week.

Mingi’s not _wrong_ , he supposes, because if it weren’t for Wooyoung’s shyness, perhaps he’d have gone on a date by now—with literally _anyone_ , doing literally _anything_ at all. Instead, he shudders through life and tries his best not to stumble and fall, and most of the time he finds himself getting by relatively unscathed; but, sadly, luck has not always been on his side.

It all starts on a Friday night with a see-through blouse and a pair of leather pants.

Wooyoung hadn’t been inside a nightclub for close to eight months. It wasn’t that he _couldn’t_ go anytime earlier, it was just that he had absolutely no desire to do so. He found the atmosphere loud and annoying to the point where it gave him a rattling headache, and the floor was always sticky with spilled booze and other fluids he didn’t want anywhere near his shoes. The music was generally shit: some crap EDM remix of a top 40 pop song that definitely did not deserve to win all the awards that it had, but still every patron under the age of twenty-five seemed to progressively lose their shit as the DJ thumped it through the speakers.

Even so, Yeosang and Mingi would only accept his excuses for so long, and really, he should be thankful he had had eight months of peace—usually, he doesn’t get that long.

The only upside of going out with Yeosang and Mingi was that they often got distracted by each other. This allowed Wooyoung to slink out of the dancefloor and to the bar, where he could sit and nurse a total of one cocktail, pretend to be tipsy when the couple returned, and get all three of them home safely before four in the morning. It was boring most of the time, a little less so when he relented and allowed his friends to drag him around the dancefloor, but it was a rarity, so he counted his blessings.

Tonight, Yeosang had dressed him. Mingi was stylish, sure, but was relatively clueless about everything except drawing cartoons and Yeosang. Two admirable qualities, of course, but he didn’t know what jeans made Wooyoung’s ass look the best—which is probably a good thing considering Yeosang had practically wrangled him into a pair of leather-look jeans that were a little too far on the _small_ size, and he’s really regretting not donating them when he had the chance. The outfit wasn’t ugly by any means, but it was so… _tight_. And _see-through._

Yeosang had always told Wooyoung that he had a great ass and thick thighs, which he supposed, compared to the other two, he _did—_ but it was something that had often made him feel a little self-conscious, and showing it off in this manner only made him anxious.

The shirt he had on definitely wasn’t his own. He’d never buy something like this—a black satin blouse that sat loosely on his frame, with floral-etched lace providing peekaboos of his skin beneath. The sleeves were the tiniest bit too long, but Yeosang said it added to the aesthetic as he shamelessly shoved his hands down Wooyoung’s pants to tuck the shirt _in_. He finished it off with a flashy belt and boots, denying Wooyoung’s request for a jacket, and shoved him out the door towards the Uber.

He didn’t carry a bag, because his phone sat in one hand and his ID and card in his back pocket, but from his shiny red shoulder bag, Yeosang whipped out a stick of lipstick and dragged Wooyoung’s face towards him in the backseat. Mingi was riding shotgun and chatting to the driver—he was always _that_ type—as Yeosang applied the red lipstick. The final component to his look, apparently, after he had given him a coat of foundation, eyeshadow and eyeliner earlier in the evening.

He already felt a little buzzy from the few drinks they’d had back at the house, but not enough to settle his nerves. As expected, the club was loud and packed, and the three of them linked their arms as they made their way through the entrance.

Mingi, being the tallest and most intimidating-looking one, led the way, pushing past drunkards who stumbled and lingered in their path. At the bar, a round of drinks was ordered; then another, followed by a third, and by the time Yeosang and Mingi had downed their fourth round, the former was clinging to his boyfriend as though he were a piece of gum. Wooyoung gagged to himself when they kissed right in front of him, exposing a little too much tongue for his liking, but Mingi mumbled a disgustingly cute _I love you, Sangie_ against his lips which Wooyoung could read, and honestly, that was _fucking cute_.

He pushed at them towards to the dancefloor, and while Yeosang grabbed his hand and wrist to join them, he managed to wrangle his way out of that humiliation—for now, at least. He nursed his mojito as he watched his two—and only—friends dance to the crappy music, ignoring the ebb and flow of people at the bar around him. At one point, he loses sight of them, so turns his attention towards his twitter feed in hopes of finding something to stimulate his remaining brain cells. With no such luck, even after he tries Instagram, he finds himself scanning the bar, where he suddenly meets eyes with another patron.

He was slouched sideways against the bar some twenty metres away, hand wrapped firmly around a dark coloured concoction, likely something bitter that Wooyoung never dared to try. Even from the distance between them, Wooyoung felt embarrassed under the heavy, hooded gaze. He was clearly with two other people, but he didn’t appear to be paying attention to what they were saying whatsoever, judging by the way his eyes raked shamelessly down from Wooyoung’s face to the rest of his body.

Wooyoung was thankful for the flashing club lights, as they would’ve hidden just how red his cheeks were, but not even the strobes could hide the flushed tuck of his chin, the quick movement of his eyes away from the handsome stranger, or the way he clasped his drink in both hands now.

He took another look after a moment, drawn to the dark-haired man wrapped in what appeared to be worn-out leather, only to look away again when he was still staring. Not quick _enough_ , however, to miss the smirk the man wore, and how it was both devilish and warm, which was such a mind-boggling juxtaposition to Wooyoung that he didn’t notice the approaching figure.

He glanced again, albeit surreptitiously this time, playing it off as though he were looking past him—only to find the spot he had occupied now vacant.

His friends were still there, the shorter of the two chatting away animatedly with hands thrown in the air and the drink sloshing out of the glass going unnoticed. He felt a rush of unwelcomed disappointment at the absence; swallowed a larger mouthful of his drink and pretended he was just thirsty. Perhaps he _was,_ really, in more ways than one.

He sat the now-empty glass on the bar behind him and turned back to try find Yeosang and Mingi in the dancing crowd, when there was a face suddenly in front of him and he made an unattractive yelping sound. His first reaction as that he was thankful he had sat his drink down, otherwise there would’ve been a pile of shattered glass at his feet and he no doubt would’ve been kicked out of the ‘fine’ establishment. His second reaction was more of a realisation, because it was the man from across the bar.

Up close, he was still just as handsome, if not more—which was saying something, since he had quite literally taken Wooyoung’s breath away from twenty metres.

The face was very close to his own—and a very angular, very pretty face it was. Wooyoung lowered his phone, head pulling back from the grinning culprit who loomed over him in this position, with what he assumed was with an expression of shock. Despite the dark lighting, he could tell the man wore contacts—blue maybe, or perhaps even green, but either way, they were piercing and confidence but by no means threatening. His dark hair was a mess, sitting on the long side, what with the way it fell down around his ears and eyes, reaching the tops of his shoulders. Wooyoung noticed a splice of blonde in his bangs, too, and the entire thing seemed to have been curled and played with over and over. Judging by the pouty nature of the man’s lips, perhaps it _had_ been messed with.

Those eyes were surprisingly friendly, despite the playful curl of his lips, and they were framed by artfully smudged eyeliner and dark eyeshadow that still managed to glisten. He wore a long-sleeve beneath his leather jacket that must have been three sizes too small, judging by the way the material hugged at his chest, and black jeans. It was an effortlessly simple and _cool_ look, one that Wooyoung wishes he were wearing instead of his current sheer get-up.

And see, Wooyoung was a simple gay man—he knew his type and this man fit it _perfectly_. He might be a total clueless and inexperienced virgin, but that didn’t mean he was a total stranger to porn or, as Yeosang liked to call them, _luscious fantaNasties._

The man was taller than he was, which truthfully wasn’t _that_ hard to do, albeit not by much; with a fit body that was still lithe and compact. Beneath his jacket, Wooyoung could see he had a tiny waist and veiny hands which still nursed his glass of dark beer, and long, slender legs. He was toned in a way that seemed natural; as though instead of working out at the gym five times a week, his general lifestyle allowed him to maintain such a form. His eyes were small yet warm, and his skin smooth like caramel even beneath the flashing lights.

Wooyoung was reminded of how very, very gay he was in this very moment, and cursed his shyness and rational, sober brain for being the thing that stops him from latching onto the man in front of him with all his strength and not letting go. That, and the fact that he was a completely inexperienced virgin who didn’t know what to do with his hands or mouth, and in all honesty didn’t want to change that fact with someone he didn’t know. No matter how attractive he was.

“Hi!” The said attractive man greeted, voice higher than Wooyoung had anticipated. His smile was dazzling, his angular face cocking to the side as he watched the blush rise higher up on Wooyoung’s face, and no doubt travelling down his neck.

“Ah,” he mumbled, raising his hand in a dorky sort of wave, “hello.” Wooyoung cursed to himself as he lowered his hand. _What was he doing?_

The man held up two fingers to the bartender, and within seconds he was handing Wooyoung another mojito, and one of himself, too. He clinked their glasses together as if they’d been friends for years, and took a long slurp through the paper straw. Wooyoung smiled in thanks, awkward, not really wanting the drink at all, but feeling rude if he didn’t accept it now. He took a small sip.

Then, the man—the unreasonably _pretty_ , _beautiful_ , _angelic_ man—smiled even wider, eyes disappearing into little crescents. “Are you here alone?”

Now, despite his virgin and ‘I’ve only kissed one person and that was Yeosang when were fifteen and curious and it was awkward and felt like kissing my brother’ status, Wooyoung knew _that_ was a line often asked in a club. He himself hadn’t been asked it before, most likely due to his resting bitch face which made him relatively unapproachable in situations like these, and also the fact he never _came_ to clubs, so he was left a little stumped. Usually it’s asked sleazily, but the guy in front of him now seems genuinely curious—which is strange, because he looks like just the type _not_ to be.

Wooyoung shakes his head, perhaps a little _too_ roughly, because he feels a large splash of the mojito splash onto his thigh, and even managing to get a bit on the other. The man follows the movement with his mouth open like a fish, before quickly reaching behind him and bringing back a small stack of napkins. He gets to work immediately, dabbing the paper onto Wooyoung’s wet thigh without thought. Wooyoung stiffens when the hand against his leg is placed higher than he expected.

The man must sense his surprise, because his hands immediately dart away from him, and a series of panicked apologies start to spill from his lips. “Ah, shit—” he curses, mostly to himself, hands fumbling with the wet napkins, not sure what to do with them or what to do with his hands. One of them slips through his fingers to the floor, “sorry! I was just—you spilt, and I—”

Wooyoung takes pity on him, snatches the crumpled paper out of his hands—ignoring the flutter in his gut when their hands brush together for just a second—and chucks them back on the bar. He’s still fumbling away, so Wooyoung cuts him off with a small smile, finding confidence in the madness and meeting his eyes with a reassuring nod.

“It’s okay!”

The man seems to hesitate, uncertain, but holds his gaze. He squints, then softens, as though finding something of interesting there. “I’m San,” he then greets, sticking his now-dry hand out.

Wooyoung watches it, notes the way his fingers were long and skinny, and his nails clean blunt, but knuckles bruised and scabbed as though it had been bashed against something. For a moment he fears that maybe San was going to trick him into getting comfortable before bashing him in the face, but that seemed relatively unlikely in such a crowded place, and despite his small size, Wooyoung wasn’t entirely helpless—knew how to throw a punch back. His confidence comes and goes, and maybe the one and a half drinks are to blame, but the confidence just keeps on flowing, so he puts his hand into San’s and shakes it. The hand is big and warm and rough from callouses, kind of like Mingi’s, but it’s not unpleasant. His grip is firm.

Wooyoung swallows, throat a little dry, when they pull away. San’s gaze on him burns hotter than it did before, and Wooyoung’s ears are starting to turn red, too. He finds the heat radiating off of them unpleasant, and he suddenly wants to lay down. San’s piercing gaze seems to suffocate him more now that he knows his name.

San smirks crookedly, exposing a dimple tucked neatly into the side of his face. “Do I not get to know your name?” His voice is laced with a flirty drawl, and he steps a little closer, practically sliding between Wooyoung’s thighs where he’s seated on the stool. Up this close, Wooyoung can see just how smooth San’s skin really is—and it’s _flawless_ —and he can see the fire in his eyes. He looks _hungry_.

“I—I’m here with, with my f-friends,” he stutters, voice cracking halfway through when San rests his hands on either side of his thighs, dangerously close to his hips. His cheeks burn impossibly hotter when San blinks lazily across at him, biting his lip just the tiniest bit, and thumbs making small circles atop the leather.

San makes a sound of understanding, uses his hands to spread his legs a little wider, to squeeze himself up into Wooyoung’s space as if he were invited there. But Wooyoung isn’t stopping him—and it’s weird, because, Wooyoung doesn’t even think he _wants_ to. He never gets this kind of attention, and that in itself it very out of character; but, more than that, the fact that Wooyoung feels no more nervous now than he did five seconds ago, when San’s breath wasn’t fanning over his face like it is now, and his crotch wasn’t basically pressed against his own, is relatively concerning. Maybe he’s drunk. _Was he_ drugged _?_

San leans his face forward, mouth now next to his ear. “Where are they, Pretty?” He asks, voice lower than before now that he doesn’t have to compete with the loud music and surrounding crowd. _Pretty. Pretty, Pretty, Pretty._ Wooyoung swallows back a noise at the pet name, finding he liked it a little too much, especially when coming from a stranger.

Thus, it is at this point that Wooyoung’s confidence _goes._ His mouth is dry and his hands clammy, and he tries to press his thighs together but remembers San is standing between them, hands now sliding confidently up and down his sides, lips brushing against his ears. When he feels a nip against one of his lobes, he squeaks, jumping in his seat just the tiniest bit. There’s a dark, husky chuckle against his ear, and he’s sure even San can feel the shudder than goes down his spine because of it.

“T-they’re dancing,” he tries to say, points in the general direction of the dancefloor. He tries to avoid San’s gaze when he draws away from his ear, but he follows him with his head until Wooyoung relents, lets him take control of his gaze, too, as well all his other senses.

“Why aren’t you dancing with them?” San reaches up with one hand and tucks a piece of his hair behind his ear, dragging his fingers delicately down the side of his face, caressing the skin as though it were art.

“It’s—um—” He stops when the hand San had on his face settles on his waist now, sliding him forwards off the stool, just slightly, so that they’re hips are pressed together. Wooyoung’s never been in a position like this before, and he hates to admit that he _likes_ it—feels his breathing get a little heavier at the mental image he has going on right now. He even has time to feel a little envious of San, of how confident he was in everything he did—except clean up a spilt drink—and how he could just literally slide into the arms of a stranger and make himself at home there. He thinks he hears San mutter _Pretty_ under his breath again, but he can’t be certain. The music and lights are starting to get distracting again.

“It’s not really, my thing. I guess,” he attempts again, succeeds with a little victory. San hums in understanding, shifting a little on his feet, and making a spark of heat soar between their joined hips. Wooyoung can feel his hands shaking, and he’s torn between wanting to melt into the ground, and throw his arms around San’s neck. He knows the latter is never going to happen, at least not in this lifetime and definitely not anytime soon, not with the way nerves and anxiety and general shyness eat away at his every move, decision and thought.

“So, why come here if you’re not going to dance then, Pretty?” He’s playing with his hair again; twirling a strand of it around his finger before flattening it back down.

Wooyoung could ask him the same question, and he goes to, because if San wasn’t dancing, then _why_ was _he_ at the bar, talking to _him_? He had an inclination that he knew the answer, and that it was definitely going to be something Wooyoung had no intention of experiencing tonight, especially with a stranger—no matter how attractive and _nice_ said stranger was.

San’s brows raise immediately at the way Wooyoung straightens up in his seat, _his_ brows furrowing in a spark of confidence. He steps closer _again_ , until his hands are pressing Wooyoung back into the timber bench, chest brushing against Wooyoung’s. Even through the layers of silk and leather between them, Wooyoung can feel the heat and strength radiating off of him. San’s got a devilish smile and dark, hungry eyes, and Wooyoung is going to be having dreams about this moment for the rest of his life.

Before he can even get the first sound out, however, there’s a screech coming towards him. “Wooyoung! Wooyouuuung! We’re leaving!”

It’s Mingi—a very _drunk_ Mingi—and latched onto his side like the little leech he pretends not to be in Yeosang, grinning up at his boyfriend with his lead lolling to the side. The alcohol had clearly hit them hard whilst they danced, and he doesn’t doubt they’re both a little love drunk, too, judging by their swollen lips and the new purple marks beginning to bloom on Mingi’s neck. The alcohol had clearly caught up the shorter faster, who had a low tolerance to begin with, and his eyes sparkled with adoration looking up at his boyfriend. The lipstick Yeosang wore earlier long gone.

San had moved from against him, slipping out from between his thighs—regretfully—and Wooyoung suddenly felt cold. San just resumed his earlier position against the bar, keeping their sides touching, a hand on his thigh.

Mingi was eyeing the unfamiliar person wearily, though the alcohol was clearly affecting him a little too much as well albeit nowhere near as much as Yeosang. With much regret, that the definitely tried to hide from the handsome stranger, Wooyoung slid off the stool to his feet, setting his unfinished drink on the bar behind him, and politely bowing his head to San.

“It was uh, nice to meet you—but I—” he trailed off, swallowing dryly, as San’s eyes raked blatantly up and down his body. “—I need to get my f-friends home,” he finishes, cursing his red cheeks and shaking hands and inability to appear sexy in front of anyone he finds remotely attractive.

He felt a pang of hurt in his chest, really, as he linked his arm through Yeosang’s free arm to help walk him outside to a cab—because he was never going to this San character again, except maybe in some wild dreams, if he was lucky.

When he got to the entryway, he threw a curious glance over his shoulder to the bar, choking on his breath when he finds San already staring at him, hand raised and fluttering in a goodbye.

This concludes the first instance of Wooyoung’s _bad luck_.

The second moment isn’t necessarily _unlucky_ in the traditional sense, but rather a general foreshadowing of Wooyoung’s unluckiness _overall_.

He forgets his raincoat. His _raincoat_. He _forgets_ it, even though Mingi had reminded him to take it not five minutes before he walked out the door.

He had woken up to a body atop of his own that is sweaty and burning hot.

Their skin isn’t quite as sticky as it had been the night before, but it’s still warm enough that Wooyoung knows they shouldn’t be waking up anytime soon, so he shuts his alarm off before it can even ring. Mingi’s absent from the bed, so was most likely already making coffee for the three of them. He wasn’t a morning person—none of them were—so he wouldn’t realise that there was no chance Yeosang would be awake enough to drink his. Wooyoung’s too tired, and too stuck, to get up and remind him of otherwise.

He lets Yeosang snuggle a little deeper into his neck, the small puffs of his breath tickling at his collarbones. His hair had grown longer over the past few weeks, longer than he usually allows its, so it’s an uncharacteristically messy and tangled nest, but still cute. It _was_ Yeosang, after all.

Wooyoung runs his fingers through the knots, trying to detangle and tame as much of it as he could. The gentle movement stirs the elder slightly awake, and he mumbles something unintelligible into his neck. Although he doesn’t draw away fully, he does shift so that his cheek is pressed against his chest, left side of his face exposed to the air rather than neck and shoulder, and tightens his arms and legs around him from where’s resting atop of him.

It’s a very common position for the both of them—after having been friends for well over ten years, their closeness level could sometimes pass as romantic rather than platonic to outsiders. But they knew better. As did Mingi, who had been dating Yeosang for well over two years now, and got to see—and _have_ —a side of Yeosang Wooyoung had absolutely no desire to _see_ or _have_.

Wooyoung cranes his neck down and presses a soft kiss to the top of his friend’s head, who whimpers and shuffles his face against his sleep shirt. Yeosang had been feeling fine yesterday when he woke up, but returned home early from classes with a headache and muscle aches, and took a turn for the worse by nightfall. It didn’t appear to be anything extremely serious, judging by the thermometer, but both Wooyoung and Mingi’s instincts had kicked-in, and forced fed him soup and medicine until he fell asleep in their arms.

Now they lie there unspeaking for several peaceful moments, hearing only a few clatters of mugs being taken out of cupboards downstairs and the coffee machine whirring to life. Wooyoung had to get up soon for class, so couldn’t drift off back to sleep as much as he wanted too, and Yeosang was in that in-between state of awake and asleep.

Soon the noises stopped and were replaced by footsteps coming back up the stairs, followed by a light rap on the bedroom door. Mingi doesn’t wait for a response, knows better than that by now after living with Wooyoung and Yeosang for two years, and brings in two steaming mugs. He rests both of them on the bedside table by Wooyoung’s head, and nods in greeting, to which Wooyoung responds with a weak little smile—albeit, stronger than the one Yeosang tries to give him.

Now frowning, Mingi sits on the edge of the mattress and cups his boyfriends exposed cheek with one hand. His thumb brushes against the flushed skin there with the same tenderness a mother does her child.

Wooyoung had slept with Yeosang all night, the latter clinging to his younger friend like this for the hours of sleep he desperately needed. Despite the house they rented having three bedrooms—one of which went unused since Yeosang and Mingi now shared—all three of them slept in one bed last night. Mingi had a night class, so Wooyoung and Yeosang had curled up and watched a movie on the better TV in the couple’s bedroom, before Yeosang became feverish and fell asleep on Wooyoung’s chest. He didn’t dare move, afraid to wake the sick boy, and, at some point, had fallen asleep himself.

He didn’t hear Mingi come home, shower, or slip into bed with them, but when he woke up at three am, groggy, Yeosang was still asleep on his chest, face tucked into his neck, Mingi was tucked up right beside him too, arm around Yeosang’s waist and head perched above Wooyoung’s own on the pillow.

Yeosang reacts immediately to Mingi’s touch; must recognise the callouses on his hands, because he moves towards it, whimpers into it. His eyes flicker open again just briefly, that very weak smile retouching his lips, before he turns and presses a kiss to Mingi’s fingertips. Wooyoung can see the way Mingi’s heart breaks when Yeosang’s eyes close again. He was miserable when he was sick—it happened rarely, and he was cute on good day, but when he was _sick_ , it just got a thousand times worse. They both hated it though. Despite his cuteness level increasing, neither of them wanted him sick to see it.

Right now, he was clingy and insatiable, and used his whiny little voice that he used in no other situation, because he’d be the last to admit he wanted attention, and you’d only know it when he had lost inhibitions whilst medicated on cough syrup and paracetamol.

“I have to go to class,” Wooyoung says to Mingi, who looks away from Yeosang’s dozing face for a moment. “It’s revision for the exam.”

Above him, Yeosang whines, tightening his grip on Wooyoung’s neck even more. He moves his head back into its earlier position in his neck, and makes another little whining noise. If it were possible, Wooyoung’s heart breaks a tiny bit more, but let’s Mingi wrangle him from out of his arms. Yeosang grumbles, but exchanges Wooyoung’s body heat for Mingi’s, as the former snatches his coffee from the bedside table and hurries to the attached bathroom.

“Did you need a lift?” He hears Minig ask as he’s washing his face, stealing Yeosang’s expensive moisturiser while the body is half-comatose. He never had to know, and it’s not like Mingi ever noticed shit like that, anyway. God knows Wooyoung never heard the end of it when Yeosang told him that Mingi hadn’t even noticed the difference between makeup and no makeup when they first started dating, claiming that he was ‘ridiculously beautiful’ either way.

“Nah,” Wooyoung declines, peering out the bathroom window at the blue sky. “I’ll take my bike. It’s fine.”

He hears Mingi hum as he turns the shower on, giving the water time to heat up—one of the only disadvantages of renting an older property, aside from the constant maintenance that needed doing, was the fact the water pipes weren’t hooked up to the newer systems. Wooyoung strips, pokes his head out of the door so Mingi can hear him above the spray.

“I’ll bring him home some more medicine in my lunchbreak. Do you want me to get anything else for him? Did you need anything?”

“Don’t stress,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m going to head out to the doctors with him, anyway. Want to get him a medical certificate so he can get that extension on his report.” Wooyoung nods in understanding. “You just stay on campus, yeah? I _know_ you have that project plan due on Friday.”

His face scrunches up in disgust at the painful reminder.

“Don’t give me that look. I _know_ you haven’t started it yet, and you only have yourself to blame. You said you did, but according to the Netflix watching history, _somebody_ binge-watched Queer Eye again and it definitely wasn’t _me._ We both know I’m loyal to my non-reality series.”

Wooyoung snorts. “Not my fault you have bad taste.”

Mingi pulls the finger at him, unable to scold him the way he usually would due to the groan Yeosang lets out at his sudden movement. Wooyoung snickers before disappearing back into the bathroom as Mingi goes about fussing over Yeosang again.

Later, when he’s showered and changed and halfway out the door to class, he hears Mingi yelling to take his rain jacket _just in case,_ but Wooyoung waves it off, grabs his motorcycle helmet by the front door, and is on his way.

It was _this_ decision that Mingi would later refer to as _The Raincoat Incident._

And about that luck Wooyoung doesn’t really have? Well, you see, he really _is_ unlucky.

Wooyoung refused to pay the six-dollar campus parking fee his university thought was ‘ _reasonable’_ , and parked his bike a few streets over in suburbia and just walked the short distance back. He _would_ splurge if the weather was particularly bad, but even then, he didn’t make a whole lot at his casual delivery job and didn’t have a lot of funds floating around.

After his class finished, he bypassed the library to return his books before heading back to his bike—it wasn’t anything fancy, something he had gotten second-hand from a less than trustworthy dealership on the bad side of town, but it was compact and bright red and got him where he needed to be at a cheaper price than a car ever could. Some days, either Yeosang or Mingi would get on the back with him, but usually they take Yeosang’s tiny hatchback that he’d inherited from his parents when they upgraded a few years ago.

But, alas, no matter how much he tried, his bike would not start. It made an unhappy screeching sound, like metal grinding against metal, then spluttered into silence.

“You have _got_ to be fucking kidding me.”

To make matters worse, the blue skies had long gone, replaced by a threatening layer of grey clouds. Mingi’s reminder from this morning echoed through his mind, and he cursed his own stupidity. He starts the bike again, and he thinks he must be in denial as he keeps trying despite the fact it won’t catch, pretending the dark clouds overhead aren’t actually there and that the rain threatening to fall is actually all in his head.

He swears again and kicks at the front tyre, at this stage not caring if the bike falls off of its kickstand and onto the asphalt. Thunder rolls in the distance, not quite here, but too close for comfort for someone without a rain jacket or umbrella.

He considers calling Yeosang, but remembers he was unwell, and Mingi had been planning to take him to the doctors, and can’t drive anyway. _Fucking_ perfect _._

Wooyoung zips up his bag with every intention of returning to campus and waste a few hours in the library in hopes of the storm passing overhead, when he stops, pulls his phone back out and opens up his browser. By some miracle, there’s a mechanic a block or so over, and Wooyoung might be an atheist, but he might just be a believer now. The mechanics website doesn’t say anything about ‘walk ins’, and has a number there for making a booking, but Wooyoung is a millennial and will avoid phone calls to his dying breath, so he opts to just pushing the bike there and hoping they can fix it today. Or at least, keep it there until they can, and let him his undercover until the rain passes enough for him to walk to the campus bus station.

Unsurprisingly, the bike is heavy, and with a backpack full of schoolbooks, laptop and heavy-duty camera, pushing it the short distance is harder than he expected.

Halfway through the trip, the sky finally gives out with one final crack of thunder, the clouds part and rain begin to fall. At first, it’s light, not enough to blur his vision or impede his ability to push the bike, but by the time he spots the garage in the distance, he’s soaked through all his layers, and his hands keeping slipping off the handles despite the rubber gripping. As he pushes up the large driveway, he can hear drill bits and electric car raisers, as well as a song that seems familiar but that he can’t quite place the name of.

The rain is so heavy that he can barely see two metres in front of him, so he misses the small pothole and steps right into it, and—combined with his exhausted arms and aching back—stumbles. He doesn’t let the bike go, hoping it would provide some support from his fall, but he never actually makes contact with the concrete like he had been expecting. Instead, there are a set of arms around his waist, hauling him upwards to their side, and the bike is no longer in his hands but rather being pushed forward by another person.

“Easy,” his saviour says into his ear, in a hushed sort of murmur, “I got you.” It sounds vaguely familiar, he thinks, but then he’s being led forward and he forgets all about it. His legs feel like jelly, but more so his arms, sore at the point where they meet his shoulders.

When he’s finally undercover of the garage, he shakes his hair out of his eyes and allows the stranger next to him lead him towards a seat in the corner. It’s made of soft red leather, worn on the arm rests but comfortable all the same. His bike is parked up near him, a man of Wooyoung’s height with a mullet puts the kickstand back in place. A nauseating feeling suddenly swells in the pit of his stomach at the tangled hair and small stature of the man. He recognises him—or, at least, recognises the back of him. When he turns, Wooyoung notes that he’s handsome, built far smaller than he is despite their matching heights, but strong just the same with soft brown hair, pouty lips and a glaringly red bruise on the side of his neck that makes him look away, blushing.

It was one of the people he had seen San, the hot man from the other night, standing with across the bar. The nauseous feeling gets worse, and his palms—already wet from the rain—start to get slicker in his panic. Surely San was not here, too. The likelihood of him working at this specific mechanic garage was slim, next to nothing.

His bike hadn’t been washed in a while, and Wooyoung can’t help but think how nice the red paint looks glistening with water, but then the person who had stopped him from tripping in the driveway steps into view, and honestly, Wooyoung immediately wants to curl up into a ball and die.

“Oh,” Wooyoung exclaims, drawing his head back and smacking it into the wall behind him, hard enough to hurt but not enough to break the skin. He yelps and grabs the back of his head, and is stumbling over his words the same way he had stumbled over his own feet in the mechanics driveway. “S-San! Uh-Um—” He cuts himself off with hiccup, and San—it was _San,_ for fucks sake!—giggles down at him.

“You remember me,” he says, almost cockily. “Glad I’m not the only one who’s still thinking about that night, huh?” He’s teasing, and it works, because Wooyoung tucks his chin in a poor attempt of hiding his red cheeks.

In the daylight, outside of the club, he was even more gorgeous, with his long black hair messy from the rain, and strong arms visible in the white tank top he was wearing. His golden skin was glistening with water, and he was breathing a tiny bit heavily—probably from the way he had to physically drag, almost _carry_ , Wooyoung inside—and truthfully, Wooyoung might be short, but he was by no means _small_. His eyes were naturally a dark, dark brown without the contacts he wore last time, and if it weren’t for the way his lips were pressed together in a wide smile that reached up to those say eyes, then Wooyoung might’ve thought him intimidating.

“Are you alright?”

Wooyoung just kind of…stares, and says absolutely nothing. San has pretty lips—pink like the spring cherry blossoms at Yeouido Park—and strong cheek bones, jaw bones…. strong everything, really.

“Hey, kid,” the beautiful man asks again, with a light kick on his shoe, “you okay?”

Wooyoung hates that—that smug little smirk San has, that should be cocky but it isn’t, he just looks kind and confident, and it makes Wooyoung want to shrink back in on himself.

“I’m not a kid,” he mumbles, pushing his hair back out of habit, flinching a little when water flies back down onto his drying face. The man above him huffs, eyes raking over his body, “I suppose not.” Wooyoung blushes, diverting his eyes as the man’s eyes trail over him slowly. “But I never did manage to catch your name. Should I just keep calling you Pretty?”

“A-ah no, I’m—my name’s Woo-Wooyoung,” he manages to stutter out, making San purse his lips and nod.

“Well, _Wooyoung,_ let me get you a towel,” his eyes dart down to his shirt clinging to his chest, licks his lips blatantly. “And a new shirt. Wait here.”

Before Wooyoung can protest, tell San that he’s fine, the man is gone, disappearing through a door that reads _staff only._ He’s left alone out the front with an array of cars and motorcycles much nicer than his own. The shorter man was nowhere to be seen, having disappeared himself during his conversation with San, and he found himself enjoying the combined smell of old leather, spilt oil, and gasoline, despite that he’d probably get a headache from it soon. He removes his bag, letting the weight of it drop to the floor by his feet, and pushes his shoulders back to stretch out the crunch of his bones.

San returns and Wooyoung is once again left stunned by him—for the brief moment he was gone, he had almost forgotten the angelic way that he moved, the way his eyes were permanently lidded like _that._ He says nothing at first, just dumps a towel over his head and shoves a clean shirt into his lap. He grabs a grease-stained rag off one of the many workbenches, as well as a tool that Wooyoung should be able to name, but can’t, wait settles down on a stool by his motorcycle.

He pulls the towel off his head and holds the two items in his hand as though he’d never seen a towel or t-shirt in his life before. “I-it’s okay! I’m not actually that wet!” San raises one perfectly sculptured brow at him, his eyes flickering to his soaked hair and still-dripping clothes. “I’ll dry off soon!”

San snorts, pointing to the back room he’d just come out of with what Wooyoung _thinks_ is a spanner—wrench?

“There’s a bathroom in the back room; you can get changed in there if you want.” He smirks again, eyeing his body cheekily, “or you can change here, I don’t mind.”

Wooyoung blushes furiously, standing up from the seat and fumbling with the shirt. He opens his mouth to protest, but the mechanic stops him. “Don’t argue—just go change,” he says sternly, but definitely not rudely or bossily, and doesn’t even look up from the bikes engine as he does so. Wooyoung curses under his breath, but stumbles towards the back room awkwardly.

The back room really is just that: a small space utilised as both a kitchen and break room, with a run-down couch and small TV in the back corner, and a fridge, microwave and camping stove in the other. There’s a sink and shelving unit near the entryway, and a sliding door on the left that Wooyoung assumes is the bathroom.

It’s small but surprisingly clean, with no smudges on the mirror and a bench for him to drop his belongings onto. He frowns at his appearance when he catches it in the mirror, eyes wide and red from the rain, hair drenched and messy, and cheeks an alarming shade of red—whether that was from exhaustion or embarrassment, he couldn’t be sure, but he had a sickening feeling it was because of the latter.

He strips off his shirt quickly, and dried his chest and arms before he pulled the borrowed shirt over his head. The mechanic was taller than him, that much was certain, but he still wasn’t particularly large. Despite that, the shirt was swimming on him—he supposed San liked his clothes oversized, which suited Wooyoung just fine, as it avoided the awkwardness of it not fitting him. It was plain black, with what looked like a bleach stain on the right shoulder, and a tear on the collar. It smelt like a mix of grease and expensive cologne, and Wooyoung couldn’t resist lifting the collar to his nose to smell it.

Red-cheeked and more embarrassed than he had ever felt in his life, Wooyoung quickly dried off his face and hair, restyling it as much as he could but frowning at the way it sat wispy and curly atop his head, before retreating back out to the front of the store.

The man in question was still leaning over his bike, but this time he had a small torch clenched between his teeth as he undid a bolt on the underside. Wooyoung swallowed dryly at the way San’s throat bobbed and biceps clenched with each movement, and _shit,_ Wooyoung was way too thirsty right now.

This _never_ happened.

Sure, he had his gay awakening when he was about sixteen years old when Yeosang went through a second round of puberty, and had the prettiest eyes and mouth he had ever seen, but he had never been one to really _act_ on anything. Yeosang _had_ been his first kiss—if a barely-there, tipsy New Year’s kiss even counts, considering it felt like he was kissing a _brother_ —but Wooyoung likes to think of himself as a bit of a late bloomer, so he had never done anything beyond that. At least, not with anyone else other than his own hand.

Despite this, the speed at which his mouth dried up at the sight of the beautiful man bent over a motorcycle was a good indication that said gay awakening was still working its way out of his system.

The mechanic lifts his head when he hears Wooyoung clear his throat, and smiles around the torch. He pulls it free with one of his hands, setting it on the floor beside him and falling into a crouch. “You look better,” motioning with his eyes to his now-dry state, despite his jeans which were still very damp, and still _very tight._

“Yeah, t-thanks,” _fuck,_ if he keeps stuttering, honestly. “I’ll get this back to you,” he says, tugging on the shirt.

The mechanic dismisses him with a wave of his hand, and then his eyes perk up when the shorter man from before slips back into the garage. “Ah! This is Hongjoong,” he points with the wrench again, before letting it clatter to the ground. Hongjoong, the mechanic from before, smiles brightly and waves. “What actually happened?” He asked, pointing to his bike with a turn of his head.

Wooyoung shook his head dumbfoundedly, and shrugged his shoulders. He tried to avoid San’s piecing gaze as much as he could. “I-I um, my bike. It just wouldn’t start. I didn’t know what to do, so—”

San stops his stuttered rambling with a polite shush, placing a hand on his shoulder and smiling, although it isn’t a cocky smirk this time—instead, it’s warm and calming. “It’s okay, bringing it here was your best bet. Next time, call us first though. How far did you have to push this thing?”

Wooyoung is in a permanent state of embarrassment when he shrugs. “N-not far, just a block or so back.”

The mechanic eyes the bag by his feet, stuffed full and zipper bulging. “You a student?”

Wooyoung nods, biting his thumb nail out of habit. “Wait here, okay. We’re going to get the bike checked out.”

Both Hongjoong and San work together on his bike, checking the motor and transmission and oil, leaving Wooyoung seated where he had been before, the water saturating his jeans slowly starting to evaporate. Wooyoung sat, silent, for at least ten minutes, with his eyes even starting to droop at one point. An early morning class, wet weather, and pushing a motorcycle three blocks was enough to knock anyone out—and Wooyoung was truly a baby at heart. A few more minutes pass and Wooyoung vaguely realises his eyes are shut as he leans back in the chair, when he hears a little snicker.

His eyes snap open to San looking over at him from the bike, not even hiding the way he was staring at him. Wooyoung blushes, unsurprisingly, and Hongjoong pats San’s side before disappearing to the other end of the garage. The sky was beginning to darken outside, not just from the storm clouds, but because it was nearing five pm. He was meant to be home an hour or so ago, and normally Yeosang would’ve texted him by now asking where he was, but with how sick he was when he left this morning, he doubts his friend has even noticed his prolonged absence. And Mingi—well, Mingi is relatively forgetful, so it’s unlikely that he’d have noticed, either. Wooyoung doesn’t try to take the lack of texts on his phone to heart.

“Bad news,” San starts, moving around the bike to lean against the bench near Wooyoung’s head. “Your bike needs a new batter.” Wooyoung’s lets out a sigh of relief. He had been expecting something much worse—and much more expensive. “Nothing major, but we haven’t got the exact type for your model in stock. We can place the order now and it should come in with our morning delivery tomorrow. That okay with you?”

He doesn’t really register the specifics of his word, but nods anyway, figures that that’s better than nothing at all.

“You okay to leave your bike here?” He nods again, already unlocking his phone to organise an Uber. Yeosang definitely wouldn’t be able to come get him, nor Mingi, so this was his only option considering he didn’t want to walk in the rain to the nearest bus stop. Before he’s able to book a ride, though, San is flicking his forehead lightly with his fingernail. Wooyoung grips his forehead with a yelp, shocked, and San grins.

“I’ll drive you home,” he says, lifting his hands up to reveal a set of keys dangling from his index finger.

San is already stepping around him and picking up his abandoned backpack before he can respond. He slings it over one shoulder, and turns towards the carpark just outside the store. The rain wasn’t quite so bad, but still enough that San speed walked through it towards an expensive black jeep parked up front. Wooyoung tries to yell out that he’s fine, that he doesn’t mind taking an Uber, that he lives far away from here, but San is already in the driver’s seat starting the engine, and he doesn’t seem to be the type of person to take _no_ as answer when it comes to helping people. So, with a reluctant groan—not out of displeasure, he is _pleased_ to be getting a lift home, but rather he groans because he’ll have to be in an enclosed spaced with the most attractive person on earth—he waves shyly to Hongjoong who had slipped back in again and had resumed working on an old-style convertible across the garage, before hurrying through the rain to the passenger side.

The interior is clean and smells a lot like lavender and the same cologne he had smelt on the shirt earlier, and San has the heat turned all the way up. He’s grateful, and places his hands in front of the vents in hopes to remove the blistering chill he hadn’t really noticed earlier.

There’s a huff of air beside him, and San frowns. “Should’ve told me you were _that_ cold,” he mumbles, throwing a look over his shoulder before reversing out of the park, indicates, and heads down the road in the direction of the highway.

He should feel more awkward than he does, considering he’s in an expensive car with someone he met _properly_ barely an hour ago, but the only reason he feels any kind of awkwardness was because he San’s hands gripped the gear stick and wheel so confidently, and his arms looked delicious, and his _skin,_ it was smooth and looking soft as pudding and was the colour of hot fudge caramel.

Wooyoung diverts his gaze when San looks his way, feeling his stare, and he swallows dryly. “U-um, you’ll need to take exit f-five,” he stutters, cursing the god he doesn’t believe him for getting him in this state, and can feel the smirk on San’s face without even having to look at him. They sit in relative silence for a while, with San humming to the radio under his breath for a few minutes.

“So,” he starts later, checking his mirrors before changing lanes to enter the highway. “What do you study?”

Wooyoung turns to him, sees that San is too busy focusing on the traffic ahead of him. It was peak hour, and Wooyoung was torn between being happy that they’d have more time together, and devastated that he had to suffer through this torture for longer. “Ah, I’m a photography student. I’m minoring in graphic art, too,” he explains shyly, fiddling with the distressed denim of his jeans.

San’s brows raise, “photography? Cool! Is it hard?” He throws a quick glace over the gearbox to him, and

Wooyoung feels shy at how genuine his interest seems to be. “Uh, yeah, I guess. I mean, I’ve always loved taking photos, even before I was a student.”

San nods, “is it hard to please everyone? Photography would be subjective, wouldn’t it? Everyone has their own opinion of what they like, what they don’t, what’s art, what’s not.” It isn’t necessarily a question, but Wooyoung nods anyway, glad that San seems to understand the frustration most creative arts students go through.

“Exactly!” He says giddily, and San smiles at the high-pitched tone of his voice, which he usually shies away from because—well, for obvious reasons: its high-pitched and draws too much attention.

“Cute,” San mumbles, barely audible above the radio, rain, and surrounding traffic, but Wooyoung hears it clearly all the same with a ringing in his ears and a red burning on his cheeks, and San throws a careful—but still cheeky, of course—smile at him.

San is soft, Wooyoung decides. A little rough around the edges what with his calloused fingers and bruised knuckles—which Wooyoung chooses not to comment on, because he finds _that_ unlikely to be the result of changing tyres and checking oil—and big arms, but his smile is so delicate and his hair soft and eyes gentle, and Wooyoung has known him for an hour at best and can already feel himself slipping on in in the same way he does when he watches those idol reality shows for the bands he likes. He feels giddy and excited, but by what, and for what, he isn’t sure. But, even so, _San is soft,_ and Wooyoung like his company.

“So, what do you like to take photos of normally? People?”

Wooyoung shakes his head, “architecture? My best friends Dad was an engineer, so I was sorta’ raised around construction sites. I think my interest stemmed from there, and it’s just grown over the years. Living in the city helps too, I guess.” San hums in agreement, and they fall into a silence far more comfortable than the last.

“What about you?” He asks eventually, and San turns to look at him, confused.

“What about me?”

Wooyoung flushes, “I mean. How long have you been a mechanic for? You seem young."

San nods, changing lanes and exiting at exit five like Wooyoung had instructed earlier. “Since I was seventeen. I left school early, _hated_ that shit. My Mum had a bike when she was younger, and it was sitting in storage for years until I got bored one summer, decided to learn how to fix it up,” he shrugged, as if teaching one’s self to build a motorcycle was an easy and every day thing to do.

“Wow,” Wooyoung mutters, eyebrows raised as he continues to direct San towards his house. “That’s impressive.”

San smiles earnestly across at him, eyes forming little crescents in thanks. They pull up to the front of his house, and San puts the car into park, idling silently on the side of the road. He notices Yeosang’s car is in the same spot as this morning in the driveway. The rain is much heavier now, loud where it hits against the metal of the car.

“Thanks for the lift, San,” Wooyoung says, “I really appreciate it. And thanks for helping with the bike, too. I know you had to stop working to help me.” He flushes at he speaks, because this is his life now, and bites at his lip to stop it from trembling.

Surprisingly, it seems that San’s cheeks are flushed, too, which makes Wooyoung feel somewhat less nervous about his own. “You’re more than welcome,” he says. “Besides,” he shrugs, “I quite liked your company. As much as it sucks, I’m quite glad your bike broke down.”

Wooyoung ducks his head to avoid San’s gaze, and fiddles with the back at his feet and the door handle. “T-thanks again. Uh, I’ll um, call the—”

“I’ll walk you up,” he interjects, opening the door and is outside before Wooyoung can protest.

He fumbles with the door, squinting into the rain as he gets his bag on, and within the next second the rain has stopped. He looks up, sees bright red love hearts covering a white background, and beside him San is smiling as he holds the umbrella over the both of them.

“C’mon,” he says, giving Wooyoung a tiny shove on his shoulder. Wooyoung doesn’t bother fighting him, because San probably won’t listen anyway, and instead opens up the front gate and lets San lead him to the front door. Yeosang and Wooyung rent the tiny house in suburbia by chance; the lease was done privately, without a realtor, so it was far cheaper than other houses and even apartments in the district. It was old, sure, and needed some love, but the two of them had decently sized rooms and a large living space with open-plan kitchen, and they managed just fine. When they reached the porch, San dropped the umbrella.

The roof covered them here, and facing each other like this, Wooyoung couldn’t help but further notice the height difference. It wasn’t substantial, but it was enough that Wooyoung felt a little tingly because of it.

“Your number?” He says, and Wooyoung makes a choked sort of sound.

“W-wha-why?”

San huffs a smile, pulling his phone out of his work overalls. “So that I can let you know when your bike is fixed tomorrow. Is that okay?” He’s serious for a moment, perhaps taking Wooyoung’s stutters as hesitance to give out his number to a practical stranger, and it looks strange on his usually-smiling face.

Wooyoung nods, makes a gurgling sound, and rattles off his number to the mechanic. By the time he repockets his phone, Wooyoung has his keys out and is shuffling awkwardly. _What now?_ Wooyoung isn’t good at goodbyes, feels awkward, and especially when someone that attractive is standing in front of him. San reaches out playfully, grips the chest of his borrowed t-shirt and tugs on it. Wooyoung stumbles forwards slightly, until San stops him with a hand on his hip. Wooyoung chokes on a gasp, eyes wide and unblinking, and San just smirks. _Always smirking._

“You should keep this,” he says lowly, voice deep as he fiddles with the collar with his free hand. The back of his hand brushes against the skin of his collarbones accidentally, _just slightly_ , but it’s enough for the hair of his arms to stand up on end, and a shiver to go down his spine.

If San notices it, he doesn’t mention it, but he does lean forward, and _down,_ as if he were about to, as if he was going to—

Two things happen at once.

First, there’s a rattling, and the front door swings open. Out the corner of his eye, Wooyoung see’s Yeosang’s furrowed brows raise until they’re almost at his hairline, and he drops his phone to the carpeted entryway.

The second, deeming Yeosang’s reaction understandable, was that San’s lips made contact with Wooyoung’s cheek. It was soft, barely-there, and lasted not even three seconds.

But it was a _kiss,_ and it knocked the breath out of Wooyoung’s entire body, until all he could hear was the ringing in his ears, and a vague, muffled, “I’ll call you,” before he was picking his umbrella back up, and darting back out into the rain.

By the time his hearing came back, San was pulling away from the curb with a toot of his horn, and Yeosang’s mouth was opening and closing like a fish.

“W-what. What? Wait.” Yeosang shook his head, hands up as though stopping traffic. “What the fuck just happened? Who the fuck is that?”

He pointed to the road, to the car that was no longer there, to the hot man who he had just met who had kissed his damn cheek, _who had walked him to his door like a date,_ and promised to call him. Wooyoung felt his knees shake, and he thought he might faint had it not been for Yeosang grabbing him around the shoulders and hauling him inside. He shouldn’t feel as affected as he is, and he _really_ shouldn’t have felt as comfortable around the elder man as much as he did. It was like they’d known each other for the same amount of time Yeosang had known him; as if San had been driving him home and walking him to the front door for months now, and not just after their very first _official_ meeting.

Inside, Mingi was sprawled shirtless, unsurprisingly on the couch, a big red bruise on his pec that he’d normally tease him for had it not been the current circumstance, and Yeosang really _must_ be feeling better, and he raises his brows at his appearance.

“Damn, what happened to him?” He asked, clearly to Yeosang, who was giddy and jumping around beside him, his flu from this morning long forgotten.

“A HOT GUY KISSED WOOYOUNG!”

Mingi sits up immediately, starts yelling along with Yeosang, and honestly, Wooyung thinks he’s living in a permanent state of _I want to die, I want to die, I want to die._

It only gets worse from there.

Wooyoung didn’t shy away from the fact that he was unpopular—or, whatever that meant when you were in your final year of university and the memory you have of high school is nothing but a blurry mess of underaged drinking, cliques and borrowing pens that you’d never end up returning.

He had only a few friends—four, to be exact—one of which was his cat, Harry, and the other his Mum, both of whom lived on the other side of the country, and the latter almost always travelling somewhere Wooyoung can’t pronounce.

Mingi, one of only two people he actually spoke to outside of class, had befriended him on their first day of orientation two years prior by stumbling into him despite the footpath being wide enough for the both of them. He had claimed that Wooyoung was _too short_ and that he _hadn’t even entered into his field of view_ , which, realistically, _should’ve_ been insulting, and in any other circumstance Wooyoung’s ego might’ve taken a hit, but the much taller boy was grinning widely with all his teeth on show, and seemed too innocent to have meant it with malice.

Wooyoung had known Yeosang for well over ten years. They had met in primary school, seated next to each other when Yeosang transferred to their school halfway through the year. Yeosang had an early mid-life crisis when he was eighteen, realising he didn’t actually enjoy physics as much as he thought he had, and ended up enrolled at the same university as Wooyoung, but studying secondary education instead.

Mingi had taken to Yeosang immediately, following him around even more than he did Wooyoung, and it wasn’t long until Yeosang agreed to a date…and then another, and another, until they became _YeosangandMingi_ and Wooyoung was, not for the first time, regretting ever introducing them.

But, seeing the way Mingi had pulled Yeosang out of his shell and showed the rest of the world how bright and sometimes _annoying_ he truly was, Wooyoung can’t ever _actually_ bring himself to truly, really, regret it, after all.

Even so, Wooyoung was _unpopular._

People didn’t know who he was—whether that was fellow students or lecturers he’d had classes with for almost three years now—but he wasn’t particularly upset by that. He _liked_ not drawing attention to myself, because whenever that happened, he did something to embarrass himself even more, and he honestly didn’t have time for that anymore. He was a hardworking man now, getting a degree and shit, making his mother proud—all that jazz.

But, sometimes, he really wishes he _were_. Popular, that is. It would make a lot of things easier.

Like, the baristas at his coffee shop would actually remember who he was, rather than still asking his name after coming to them for _three years_ ; his lecturers might mark him a little easier because they actually recognise his name; and people might actually _move out of the damn way_ when he’s walking down the hallways. If he were popular, people wouldn’t actually treat him as if he were invisible—as if he didn’t actually _exist_.

It was fine some days, but others it was all-consuming and exhausting, messing with head and chipping away at his barely-there self-esteem. It didn’t help that he was naturally shy and easily embarrassed as it were, meaning that any ounce of attention made his cheeks bright red and his voice would stutter and crack like he was going through puberty all over again.

Like—right now, he wishes he were popular, because instead of his photography lecturer assigning him the _hardest topic_ of his degree, he might’ve been given one actually suited to his personal style. While the lecturer seemed to give everyone a topic that was relevant to their tastes—whether that was portraiture or still life or elegance or history or _the expression of modernism and corruption_ —he got _marvellous and mundane._

Wooyoung didn’t even know what that _meant._

The lecturer, Park Seonghwa, was by no means a _cruel_ or _mean_ teacher, he was just very stern. He was soft-spoken and gentle with sharp features but round cheeks, and he was definitely young for a lecturer, even for the creative arts, but he was highly-skilled with many years’ experience in and out of the workforce.

He hated to admit it, but Wooyoung had actually applied to this university’s photography school _because_ of Seonghwa—if he had known that his entire existence was going to be swallowed up by far brighter, far more confident students, well, then he probably never would have bothered.

“Mr Jung, I’m giving you _marvellous and mundane,”_ there are mumbles around the room, but people don’t pay that much attention and quickly move on, discussing to the friends they sit beside about their assigned topics.

“I want you to make something mundane seem marvellous. And I want you to take something marvellous and make it mundane.” Seonghwa steps a little closer, maintains the eye contact he’s so famously known for.

“Intrigue me. _Bore_ me. Make me _think_ , Mr Jung.”

Mr Park was a nice teacher, a _cool_ teacher, even—more so if he actually remembered who you were. Wooyoung was always _Mr Jung,_ and never _Wooyoung_. Every other student was on first-name basis with him, so why wasn’t he? It wasn’t like it was an overly _big_ class: less than thirty, given that it was a senior project class, and you had to be approved by the faculty to sit it. But, whatever, it’s not like Mr Park had ever picked on him intentionally; maybe his memory is just bad. It’s not like Wooyoung is all that memorable, nor is his photographic work, truth be told.

When the class finishes, and Seonghwa has gone over the criteria—twelve photos total, due in one months’ time, with a 50-100-word blurb at the beginning describing the project—he packs up his belongings with a vague idea of what he might take photos of.

He’s considering the new construction site of the city library when Seonghwa places a hand on the corner of his desk. Wooyoung looks up, bowing his head slightly.

“Mr Jung, I understand you prefer photographing architecture.” It isn’t a question, but Wooyoung nods anyway. “People are architecture, too. No buildings this time,” he says with a slight nod, before he’s turning on his heel, returning to the front of the theatre to pack up his own belongings.

If Jung Wooyoung were popular, this wouldn’t even phase him. But he isn’t, so he cups his face in his hands, and tries not to scream.

San does, in fact, call him; but he’s in a lecture with his phone on silent at the bottom of his bag, so it goes ignored. He’s on his way to the coffee shop when he notices the _missed call from San_ on the home screen, dreading the fact that he’ll have to call back, never knowing what to say or how to say it when it comes to phone calls. He’s planning on writing a script when his phone buzzes, showing San calling him again.

He worries his bottom lip between his teeth, stopping just near the entry to the café, but not in the way of other patrons entering and exiting for their caffeine fix. He contemplates not answering it and just sending a text instead; he could lie, just tell him he’s in class and maybe San would reply with whatever it is he wanted—but, no. He miraculously finds the courage to answer it, with the fear that San would pressure him into calling at some point or rather; plus, it _is_ about his motorbike, and it was probably important. 

“H-hello?” There’s a surprised sound on the end of the line.

“Pretty! You answered me, finally.” He chuckles, and there’s a distorted sound in the background, as if he were on speaker. That makes him flush, suddenly more self-conscious than before. He scurries towards one of the benches outside the coffee shop, plopping down away from everyone else so he could hear better.

“Y-yeah, sorry, I was in class,” he apologises, teeth finally breaking the skin of his bottom lip. He could taste blood, and it stung a little, but he barely noticed it as San giggled.

“That’s a relief. I thought you were ignoring me,” he sounded a little whiny, which was way too cute for Wooyoung to comprehend, and he made an all too familiar choking sound because of it. “I wanted to let you know your bike is all fixed! The part came in, and she’s all ready to go!”

Wooyoung lets out a sigh of relief, “thank you so much San! I’ll uh, be in soon? I-I have a break between classes.”

San makes a breathy sound, “okay, I’ll be here! See you soon, Pretty!” He giggles before bidding him farewell, and Wooyoung leaves the phone at his ear for too long after he hangs up.

San is a flirt, that much is obvious, and shit, Wooyoung is far too affected by it. Before he can lose his cool, he grabs his bag and slings his camera back around his neck, before heading inside the shop. He orders three coffees, and is heading towards the garage within ten minutes.

The walk is short, and the rain had cleared overnight, so he didn’t fear getting stuck in bad weather again—however, he _did_ pack an umbrella and raincoat today, just in case. Mingi had made sure of that after hearing about his ordeal.

The walk really didn’t take long, so by the time he arrives at the garage, the iced americanos are still icy, and his cheeks have a natural red flush to them from the sun. He spots Hongjoong first, who’s bending over the opened hood of an SUV. He turns when he hears him approach, throwing him a friendly and warm smile for someone he’d never actually spoken to before.

“Hey, Wooyoung,” he greets, clicking his cheek with his tongue. Wooyoung nods and smiles, and pulls out one of the coffees from the takeaway tray, and hands it to him.

The mechanics eyebrows raise in surprise, and flicker back up to him curiously. “What’s this for?”

Wooyoung shrugs shyly, “As a thank you. You helped me out very quickly, and uh, I’m grateful. I’m fairly useless when it comes to looking after myself and my bike, so—”

“Wooyoung!” San appears out from the back room, wiping his hands on a rag that he chucks away.

He’s wearing a singlet again today, one that he assumes used to be fully white, judging by the splotches of cream appearing through the grease stains and rips. Wooyoung’s throat, as usual, dries up, and he almost has an aneurism when San lifts the collar of his shirt up to wipe away the sweat on his face. In doing so, the hem lifts, too, and Wooyoung catches an eyeful of toned abdomen with _abs_ that glistened with sweat, like some scene out of a fucking movie, or something, and Wooyoung isn’t built for this kind of life. His gay heart panics, more than it ever has before in his entire life, and really, Yeosang’s puberty was the most dramatic thing he had ever seen—so that’s saying something.

“S-San,” he mumbles, unable to move his eyes away from the Glorious Body in front of him until the shirt falls back down and snaps him out of it. Hongjoong is smirking at him knowingly as he sips on the coffee, and Wooyoung makes a grunting sound in embarrassment.

“Oh,” he says, holding out the coffee tray to him. “T-this is for you.”

San makes an expression similar to Hongjoong’s, taking the drink gratefully. He sips it, and Wooyoung has to turn away from the way San’s lips pout around the straw. His cheeks are flushed and his ears feel all hot, so he focuses his attention on his motorbike parked by entranceway, shiny and glossy as though she’d been polished. Wooyoung takes a sip of his own coffee, and fumbles with the cup when San suddenly throws an arm around his shoulder, dragging him towards the bike.

When San pulls away, he sits sideways on the bike, hands supporting himself on the seat, and Wooyoung hates to admit but—San looks _good_ on his bike. His hair is sweaty, and with the black pushed back, Wooyoung notices a sliver of blonde through the front part of his bangs. It’s shaggy and long, resting just near his shoulders, and tucked back behind his ears in a way that looks both styled and accidental. His eyes are soft as they stare up at him, and his lips red and pulled across his face into a gentle smile. Wooyoung finds himself getting a little lost in there, in those dark eyes which should make him want to turn and run away, but don’t.

He coughs a little when San’s smile grows bigger, a little more on the flirty side—his usual territory—and pulls the straw away to cover his mouth as he chokes. It clears easily, but then San’s hand is reaching out towards him, thumb swiping at the corner of his mouth, before he’s dragging back to _his_ mouth. His tongue— _holy shit,_ his _tongue_ —licks at it, curling around the skin, removing the evidence of the tiny bit of coffee Wooyoung had spilt on himself.

Wooyoung stutters through a gasp, loud enough that San makes a humming noise. He relaxes further into the bike, legs spread wider than before, and Wooyoung has never been more thankful for the baggy overalls San wore now, because had they been as tight as the jeans Wooyoung himself was wearing, the eyeful he’d be getting right now would’ve been A Lot.

“This is cute,” San says, plucking at the strap holding his camera. He’d forgotten he was wearing it, and he grasps it in his hand awkwardly.

“Y-yeah, it’s um. I have to take photos for an assignment,” he explains, causing San to huff a laugh.

“I figured, considering you’re a photography student.”

Wooyoung blushes, nodding, “of course, I mean. Of course, you know that, I just—”

“You’re so pretty,” San says with a sigh, face as soft as Wooyoung as ever seen it. His expression is almost dreamy as he gazes up at him, and Wooyoung could use that expression as his life force for the rest of eternity.

“I—I, erm. I. You—” He chuckles nervously, all too forced, and San frowns slightly.

“Do I make you uncomfortable, Wooyoung?” He’s serious this time, no teasing audible in his voice anymore, and Wooyoung shakes his head.

“N-no. You don’t,” which isn’t a lie, per se, but definitely not the truth either.

San raises his eyebrow, as though sensing his hesitancy.

“I mean, yes, you _do_ , but not.” He stalls, unable to find his words, and San pushes himself up off the bike to stand in front of him not. Not too close, but enough that Wooyoung can’t escape his gaze. “It’s not a bad thing,” Wooyoung eventually manages to mumble, biting his lip again, still-sore from earlier, and drops his gaze to the floor.

There’s silence, San not responding to him, but then Wooyoung notices San dropping his knees, and moving his face into his line of sight. Wooyoung moves his eyes, but San just follows, forcing Wooyoung’s eyes onto his own, until he can’t help it and he’s giggling into his hand. San own hand reaches out, curls around his wrist and tugs it down and away from his mouth, letting the giggles spill out into the empty garage. Wooyoung knew his laugh was a little silly—it was incredibly high pitched, and he wasn’t embarrassed by it, usually, but something about San judging him for it made him anxious.

The laughing stopped, and San frowned. “Pretty?”

The hand slides from his wrist up to the sleeve of his shirt, where San fiddles with the hem. Then it slides up over the fabric to his throat, where it rests gently, fingers teasing at his neck, at the collar, slipping beneath and petting at the skin there. Wooyoung is left breathless, so he hums when San’s eyes stare into his.

“Pretty?” He shakes his shoulder a little, and Wooyoung nods, understanding that as much as he disagreed, _Pretty_ was San’s name for him, now.

“Don’t ever hide your laugh,” he says, a request more than a demand. “It’s pretty, just like the rest of you.” He says it earnestly, without an ounce of teasing in his voice, and Wooyoung realises they’ve known each other properly for less than 48 hours, but it feels like a lifetime. He feels comfortable, despite all his nerves and embarrassment, even _if_ the flirting makes him uncomfortable because, well, he’s never _been_ flirted with before.

“Tell me,” San says, as if reading his mind. “Why do I make you uncomfortable?”

Wooyoung panics slightly, puts his coffee on the bench beside them. His hands have a mind of their own somehow, because they’re suddenly resting on San’s tiny, _tiny_ waist, and holding him tight as to not let him escape.

“You don’t. Not really! It’s just,” he struggles with his words, but San maintains eye contact, listening intently, not pressuring him. He squeezes at his neck, fingers still tickling at his skin beneath his shirt. “No one uh, no one’s really spoken to me like this before.”

San cocks his head to the side in confusion. “What do you mean?” Wooyoung makes a pained expression at the thought of having to explain _this._ “You mean…flirt with you?”

Wooyoung nods once, ducking his head, but San’s finger just drags his chin back up to meet his eyes. “No one’s ever flirted with you before?”

Again, Wooyoung nods.

San groans, “that’s a _travesty. Look_ at you!” He steps away, grabs his hands to hold out in front of him, and Wooyoung tries to slap at him when San bites his lip and rakes his eyes over his body, eyes a lot darker now than they were not five seconds ago.

“S-stop! S-San, stop, stop!”

Despite his protests, Wooyoung giggles slightly, cheeks red, he’s sure of it, and San grins and drag Wooyoung into his arms, being mindful of the camera still strapped around his neck. It should be weirding having a practical stranger hugging him, but it isn’t, and up this close to him, Wooyoung can turn his nose into his neck and smell the cologne he’s been thinking about since the first moment he smelled it, and he isn’t sure he didn’t imagine the soft grunting sound that came from deep within San’s chest as he nosed along the skin there.

This should be weird, and if Yeosang could him right now he’d surely get slapped for being _an easy slut,_ but he _isn’t_ and there’s no one around to see his embarrassment or shyness except for San himself, and he seems to not care in the slightest that his cheeks are permanently red and that he stutters every second word around him. He’s usually _good_ at speaking, eloquent and clear, but San is just…San just _exists_ the way he does and suddenly all his motor skills are shot out the window.

Wooyoung doesn’t know what’s going—right now, tomorrow, or whatever the fuck happened yesterday—but holy shit, he won’t deny that he’s enjoying the attention he never seems to actually get.

When San pulls away, Wooyoung feels a little dizzy—lightheaded, even, but in the sense of feeling faint. Rather, he feels otherworldly, like he’s been dragged from this one and plopped back down in a planet that looks the same but just acts differently. San is smiling softly at him, tucking a piece of his hair behind his ear like some delicate maiden from a different time, but he likes it.

“I-I should get going,” Wooyoung announces, wishing he were immune to San’s pout.

He smiles softly, and San sighs. “Okay, I’ll let you go.”

Wooyoung takes the keys from San when he fishes them out of his pocket, expectantly, until the mechanic relents, and fishes out a slip of paper, too: the invoice. “I’ll transfer the money through tonight,” Wooyoung announces, not bothering to look at the cost, knowing he’d have to pay for the bike to get fixed either way. He has some money stored away for this sort of this anyway, so he isn’t too concerned. He fishes his helmet out of his bag and straddles the bike, suddenly embarrassed with the way San is watching him.

Before he can put the helmet on all the way, San swoops down and kisses the tip of his nose, and yanks away before Wooyoung can do anything about it. He sees the way he’s frozen up, and helps pull the helmet down over his face, even going as far as flipping the sun visor down to protect his eyes. San grins cheekily at him, and the visor does nothing to dampen the brightness of it.

He’s like putty in San’s hands, and he’s already too far gone to stop himself from slipping through the cracks of them.

Wooyoung is already half-awake when his alarm goes off.

It’s seven fifteen on a Tuesday morning, and he has class at eight. It’s the only morning class he has, and usually he doesn’t bother trying to look that presentable for it—it only goes for an hour, and he sits in the back-most row of the theatre so no one can judge his questionable taste in morning attire. Despite the limited time he has to get ready and roll out the door to the campus, he refuses to rise any earlier. He’d much rather experience the anxious rush of lateness every Tuesday morning than get out of bed before seven.

Still half-asleep, he rolls out of bed, half-stumbling when he stands on a stray pair of sneakers, grabs his phone off the bedside table where its charging, and is halfway down the stairs when he hears his friends cackling. He can hear the coffee machine working its magic, and the clinking of mugs; Yeosang and Mingi may be annoying, loud and relatively inconsiderate when it comes to their _alone time_ , but they make up for it for their _okay_ company and the fact that Yeosang will make a coffee for him every morning without fail.

Some days, Yeosang or Mingi will even bring it up the stairs and put it on his bedside table for when his alarm goes off, allowing him to lie in bed for just that tiny bit longer.

In the kitchen, the Tuesday morning routine follows its usual plan: Wooyoung will kick his toe on the corner of the kitchen island and swear, hobble forwards with his hands outstretched to where Yeosang will pass him his mug with a coo; Mingi will lean over the bench from where he’s seated on one of the barstools and ruffle his hair, and as Wooyoung takes his first mouthful, Yeosang will fuss over his hair and straighten it all back out again.

It was times like this where Wooyoung allowed his friends to baby him—Yeosang acted so much like a mother sometimes, and more often than not it irritated him, but in the mornings, there was an exception to everything. Mingi just went along with anything, not really caring if he was mothering or not, but just found a sleepy Wooyoung too cute to ignore. Wooyoung was always too tired to ever actually do anything about it.

Yeosang finishes fixing his hair, and Mingi snorts. “How can you wear that to bed even in winter?”

Wooyoung’s eyes have closed, but he hums; he stopped being embarrassed by his sleep attire about a week after they all moved in together, and they had all gotten used to seeing each other in very minimal clothing, anyway.

It’s not like he was naked—he wore underwear no matter what, and a much too large t-shirt.

This time, though, the t-shirt was the one he was borrowed from San that first time, and was told he could keep. He hates to admit that he had worn it to bed every night since receiving it; hated putting it in the wash as he knew it would lose the underlying smell of the mechanic’s cologne.

“You know why, Mingi,” Yeosang says, amusement in his voice. He keeps playing with Wooyoung’s hair, petting him like a cat, and scratches at the back of his scalp just above his neck.

Mingi snorts again. “Yeah, because half of the time _I’m_ cold because you slip into bed with him because you’re worried _he’s going to get sick._ ”

There’s a cackle from Yeosang, deep in his throat, because he, too, struggles with his voice in the morning, especially being as deeply-spoken as he usually is. To be fair, Mingi’s _not wrong._ Yeosang often does slip into bed with him at nights—a habit they can’t break from their childhood and high school days when they used to stay at each other’s places more often than not—and Wooyoung’s immune system was shit on a good day, so his disappearance from Mingi’s side wasn’t unheard of.

Still, Wooyoung frowns, worried he’s genuinely upset Mingi, because his brain can’t rationalise emotion or tone so early in the morning and with only half a mug of coffee in his system. Yeosang coos again at his pout, tapping his top lip with what he assumes his index finger, and quickly kisses his cheek.

“He’s only joking, Woo,” Yeosang explains with another scratch.

Then, there’s another voice, one his sleep-clogged brain doesn’t recognise at first.

“You call him Woo? That’s cute.”

It’s higher in pitch than Yeosang’s or Mingi’s, and his brows furrow in confusion. He hears someone snort—but it’s not Mingi this time—and Yeosang _never_ snorts, it’s just not his thing, but—his eyes snap open, suddenly very much awake, and his eyes are snapping over to where Mingi is seated at the barstools, past him, to the other person seated there, in what is usually Yeosang’s seat. They’re grinning, mouth spread widely across their face, dark brown and blonde hair falling into their eyes, and looking a bit ruffled, as though they had been out in the wind or rain or perhaps even wearing a _helmet—_

“Morning, Woo!”

Wooyoung hates to admit it, and he would look back on himself in shame, but he practically drops the mug—it was saved by the kitchen counter, though it falls on its side and precious coffee spills everywhere—and San swears in surprise when he suddenly yelps and screeches, skidding across the kitchen tiles in socks back the way he came. He doesn’t look over his shoulder as he hurries from the room, climbing up the stairs with his face on fire, and locking his bathroom door behind himself.

His heart is hammering in his chest, and there’s a ringing in his ears, when he looks down at himself. Underwear on show underneath _San’s t-shirt,_ socks and he hasn’t even showered.

He considers skipping class, but his attendance is marked, and he has a perfect score so far and he needs every mark he can get. So, he knows he’s going to have to go downstairs to leave the house, but he also knows that means he can’t ignore San. He might be embarrassed, but he isn’t _rude._ His parents raised him _right_.

So, he swallows his pride and embarrassment, and twenty minutes later he’s showered and dressed and re-entering the kitchen-dining space.

San is standing by the sink with Yeosang, forearms deep in suds as he washes up mugs and plates from breakfast, laughing with the younger. Mingi is nowhere to be seen, likely getting ready for his own classes, so Wooyoung purposefully drops his bag a little loudly on the bench. San and Yeosang stop talking to look at him, and San’s soapy hand waves at him cutely from across the bench.

Wooyoung smiles back, trying to hide his embarrassment, but he knows he fails judging by the way Yeosang rolls his eyes. He steals the sponge out of San’s hand, and shoves the taller towards the front door.

“Leave, Woo is gonna’ be late.”

“Wait, what?”

San, still grinning like a maniac, drags Wooyoung towards the door. Before Wooyoung can even grab his helmet, or say goodbye to his friends, San has him halfway down the driveway to a familiar looking motorcycle. “Wait, San—I can drive myself! I have classes all day!”

San snickers, “but I’m already here, Woo!” San says it teasingly, but Wooyoung finds that he likes it—a _lot._

Despite him teasing, it sounds— _feels_ —different to when Yeosang and Mingi do it. Probably because they were the only people to ever actually _call_ him that, and hearing someone else use the endearing term has taken him off guard. Even so, he hates to admit that it sounds heavenly on his tongue and spilling from his lips like it had always been there, a familiar flavour that he can’t get enough of. He hopes the addiction doesn’t show on his face, but he knows it already does.

“I—” San turns to face him, already pulling his helmet down over his head, and handing Wooyoung a spare. It’s plain black, like San’s own, and glossy—Wooyoung can see the reflection of how own very red face in the paint, and he kind of wants to die all over again.

“Why do you refuse help, Wooyoung?”

“I-I don’t,” he stutters, turning his face away from San’s gaze. It was piercing even through the visor of the helmet.

“So, you just refuse mine, then? Oof, how cruel you are to my heart,” San clutches at his chest, and though Wooyoung know he’s messing with him, he still pouts at the elder, shyly reaching his hands out to grip his shoulders in apology. San stiffens beneath his hold, but loosens within the next heartbeat falling between them.

“You know that’s not it…you make me nervous. We’ve been over this,” Wooyoung explains, the red on his cheeks spreading down his chest now. San smile becomes crooked, and he cocks his head to the side in what appears to be admiration.

“I know. I just love to see you blush.”

Wooyoung screws his face up. “You love to see him suffer.”

San shrugs. “Maybe. But I hope you know,” he starts, stops, expression turning relatively serious for such a non-serious person. There’s a crease between his brow that Wooyoung wants to flatten out with his thumb, and San’s hands wring the handles of his bike as though he was nervous.

“I hope you know I wouldn’t actually hurt you. I do _like_ you, you know.” San’s eyes look hopeful, while Wooyoung is sure his look soulless.

“We’re at least friends, right?”

At least _._ _At least?_ _What the_ fuck _does that mean?_

“O-of course we are. And I know you wouldn’t try to really make me suffer.”

San nods once, proud as Wooyoung’s development, apparently, and swings his legs over the bike. Wooyoung ignores the way he straddles the bike, pushes that image right out of his head because he absolutely cannot get himself into any inconvenient positions right now considering San is motioning for him to get on the bike _behind_ him.

“You could’ve fooled me, though,” he says when he climbs on, resting his hands awkwardly on either side of San’s waist. “Sometimes I think you’re trying to embarrass me to death.”

San giggles, denying nothing, the little shit, and pulls Wooyoung’s hands from his waist up around him instead. “It’s like you’ve never had a passenger before, Woo! Hold me tight, please.”

Wooyoung flicks his visor down, before obeying San’s orders—Wooyoung can feel the tautness of San’s abdomen just my wrapping his arms around him, can feel the broadness of his shoulders where he rests his chin on them, and his own chest absorbs the heat that burns through his leather jacket. The trip to the campus is short, because not only does Wooyoung not live that far, but San seems to know all the same shortcuts as he does.

Traffic is quiet this time of morning—just before the morning rush of commuters heading to work—so San is able to pull into the fifteen-minute parking zone easily. He pulls his helmet off as he climbs off, unwinding his arms rather unwillingly from around San. San’s already removed his, hooked under one arm, and he smiles fondly up at him.

Motioning for him step closer, Wooyoung does, freezing when San’s free hand suddenly plays with his hair—fixing up the mess the helmet had just created, he’s sure, but the hand lingers a little too long, before San is dragging it down the side of his face, cupping his cheek reverently like some kind of Victorian nobleman.

He’s smiling so, so softly, perhaps the softest he’s ever seen it, before he’s darting forward slowly—so, so slowly. His eyes flicker between his lips and eyes, and Wooyoung knows it’s a silent request of permission, one that Wooyoung is not going to deny but also doesn’t have the guts to respond to himself, so he stiffens like the asphalt he stands on.

When San gets so close his eyes can no longer focus, he shuts them, expecting to feel a soft pressure on his lips he hadn’t experienced since Yeosang and he had kissed all those years ago, but it doesn’t come.

Instead, San’s lips kiss the side of face, his lower-cheek, right at the corner of his mouth. He lingers there, as softly as his hand had been, before he pulls away just slightly. He inhales once, a ragged sounding thing, before he leans back in to press another to the very same spot.

When his brain finally catches up with what’s happening, Wooyoung can feel his entire body catch fire, cheeks an alarming shade of red, and he feels San’s lips turn upwards against his skin. He pulls away, eyes forming little crescents as he smiles, and maybe Wooyoung really is lost among the stars when he’s with him.

After all, San shines brighter than all of them put together.

“I’ll pick you up after your classes. You finish at one, right?” Wooyoung nods, dumbfounded, unable to find his voice. His own hand cups his cheek where San had just kissed him, making the other man laugh fondly.

“Keep the helmet, okay? You’ll need it anyway.”

Before Wooyoung can say goodbye, San is already gone, leaving him standing on the footpath alone. For not the first time, Wooyoung thinks he understand what people mean by being struck by lightning.

When Wooyoung leaves the lecture hall, he isn’t really paying attention to where he’s going, the swarm of students leaving the theatre nothing but a routine now.

Mingi is beside him, arm looped through his, and as always, Wooyoung is grateful for having such a tall friend; they get through the crowd easily, and Wooyoung is, _as always_ , unscathed. There are people lingering by the steps down to the lawn, which doesn’t fit the usually routine, and he hears Mingi swearing under his breath as he shoves past them with as much politeness as a sleep-deprived boy can.

Wooyoung is curious as to what they’re all waiting for, and under further inspection Wooyoung realises they’re not waiting for something, they’re _staring_ at something. He follows the trail of their eyes, looks back to the direction in which they were headed, and just—stops.

Mingi grunts at the sudden lack of movement, stumbling slightly, but stopping alongside him nonetheless. It’s a scene from a movie, he’s sure he’s seen this movie before somewhere, so maybe his life really is a joke.

There, leaning against one of the trees, in the same jeans and jacket he wore this morning, was _San._

He had his helmet clenched in one hand, and his phone in the other, and he seemed unaware of all the people ogling him from afar. He had sunglasses pushed up onto the top of his head, forcing his long hair back and exposing the smooth expanse of his forehead, and his jeans were rolled to show a sliver of skin along his ankles. Beneath his jacket, the low, swooping collar of his white t-shirt had Wooyoung swallowing dryly, and he was just about ready to turn on his heel and make a run for it when San’s head suddenly snaps up, catches sight of him on the steps, and grins as widely as he can.

Mingi makes a confused sound, as if slowly processing what was going on, and people around him start murmuring when the God Leaning Against a Tree suddenly pushes himself away from it, waving at Wooyoung and walking towards him.

 _Wooyoung,_ who has two friends and talks to nobody and is _shy,_ is being approached by the Hottest Person in the Entire Universe.

Mingi makes a sound of understanding, suddenly, as if finally realising that San was _back,_ and that their teasing about Wooyoung having a crush was actually true—judging by the redness of his friends’ cheeks. He’s suddenly unhooking their arms and reaching for his phone instead. No doubt texting Yeosang ‘the tea.’

Time moves slowly, or stands still completely, when San stops in front of him. The wind is blowing his hair around, and some of it gets caught in his eyelashes and around his eyes.

San grins because of it, and goes to swipe it away, but Wooyoung’s brain is disconnect to the rest of his body, or at least, the rational part of it is, so his hand is already stretched out and tucking the hair behind San’s ear. San seems to be shocked by his movement for a second, before he melts into the side of his hand, gripping his wrist. Then, he tugs it away from his face and down to their sides, where San tangles their fingers together in a way that seems so practiced, so natural, that it’s as if they’ve been doing it for years. Beside them, a camera shutter sound.

Wooyoung whines at Mingi, who blatantly takes a photo of them without shame. “Sorry,” he says, grinning, not sorry at all. “Sangie wanted a photo.”

Before Wooyoung can complain, or do the polite thing and introduce San, Mingi’s phone is ringing and he’s waving a hand at the two of them apologetically, before darting away into the still-lingering audience. San starts to swing their hands together between them and watches him with an expression that Wooyoung can only describe as a _gooey_.

“W-why’re you here?” He mumbles, eyes flicking over to the crowd still lingering on the steps. San follows the movement, and smiles softly.

“C’mon, let’s go,” he says, tugging on his hands.

Wooyoung allows San to guide him across campus towards the carpark, where his sleek black motorcycle is parked. He realises now that it matches San’s helmet, and judging by the way San smiles proudly at it, there’s no denying that it’s his own. Wooyoung stares at it in awe—he doesn’t know much about cars or bikes, but knows that the emblem is a rare one, and that its no doubt unbelievably expensive. He doesn’t want to know _how_ San got the money for such a thing, but truthfully, it isn’t any of his business. He was too tired this morning to fully appreciate it; it made sense that San would have it, being the kind of person he is, as well as an expert motorcycle mechanic.

“San?” The man in question hums, leaning against his bike. This time, he _is_ wearing tight jeans, and he gets an eye full of thick thighs and all he wants to do right now is cry because, really? _Really?_ “San, why are you here?”

He smiles, takes Wooyoung’s hands in his, squeezing gently. “I wanted to see you again,” he says shamelessly, tugging him a little closer when he ducks his head, embarrassed.

“So shy,” he mumbles, lifting one of his hands to kiss the back of it.

Wooyoung is dying, he’s sure of it. This is what death feels like. It feels _NICE._ And maybe it shouldn’t, because that’s a bit darker than Wooyoung’s general way of thinking, and tastes a bit like self-sabotage, but he doesn’t stop the pestering thoughts for invading him.

“Can I take you to lunch?” San suddenly asks, squeezing both of his hands, eyes hopeful as they bore into his own. Wooyoung is a mere human, can’t deny the man before him anything when he’s smiling at him like that—not even the fire on his cheeks, on his chest, in his _blood_ , at this point—so he nods.

“I-I’d love that,” he whispers, and San pulls him into a half hug, where their cheeks are pressed together in such a way that feels so entirely intimate.

Wooyoung pulls the bike helmet out of his bag—he didn’t expect to need to use it until later this afternoon, and even then, he contemplated just running away and taking the bus instead—and pulled it over his head. Just like this morning, San’s chest was firm beneath his hands, and he wondered what it would be like to rest his head against the heart that beat in time to the bursting of stars above his head in the night time.

And—and things _escalate._ They’re not dating, not _really,_ but they go on lots of things that resembles _dates._ San picks him up and drops him home from university almost every day, and on those same days, will join him for lunch. Sometimes they go out, other times they go back to the garage and eat in the back room. A handle of times they even tried eating in the canteen, but they got too many looks and Wooyoung felt jealousy burn his insides, so he put an end to that after a mere three sessions.

After nearly three weeks of these _dates_ , some of which even took place after hours at the garage, with Wooyoung seated on the armchair or perched on top of the bench while San worked on a car or bike, Wooyoung felt confident enough around him that staying the night to watch movies and eat pasta didn’t scare him.

San had promised to make dinner, but had first said that he prepared a picnic lunch for them to have in the backyard. _A picnic lunch_ —Wooyoung really _was_ living in a romance film.

Turns out San lived behind the garage shopfront. The block was larger than Wooyoung had thought, extending backwards by such a length that there a front lawn behind the garage that led up to a house that, although old, was well looked after with rose bushes and a large cherry blossom tree—which was sadly out of season, but Wooyoung was sure it was beautiful in Spring—and the front porch even had a _rocking chair_ like some kind of fairy-tale.

The inside was unsurprisingly eclectic, with photos and art from San and Hongjoong’s many travels hanging on the walls, and styled with repurposed or vintage furniture in a mismatched fashion that all seemed to work. In the living room, there was even one of the most exquisite patch-work rugs Wooyoung had ever seen, and when he told San as such, he was positively _beaming_ , telling him that both he and Hongjoong had actually made it.

The two of them had been living together since they purchased the plot and old garage, and had been friends for almost as long as Wooyoung and Yeosang had been. Their closeness seemed different, though. Whereas Yeosang and he were so clingy one would think they were touch-starved, Hongjoong almost seemed like a father-figure to San.

Upon hearing this, San sniggered, but there was a sadness in his eyes when he explained that he kind of _was_ , since his own father didn’t want anything to do with him after San had come out as a teenager. Hongjoong stuck around, cared for him, guided him, and practically raised him as his own—despite only being five years his senior. The kitchen was the oldest room in the house, as it was the only room to _not_ have gone through some form of renovation, but it was quaint and cared for, with a bouquet of sunflowers on the dining table. Wooyoung looked at the array of photographs pinned to the side of the fridge as San fluttered about the kitchen, packing up the picnic basket with food he’d prepared the night before.

Outside, the sun was warm, but not burning hot—it was winter, after all. It was just the right temperature to be able to take their overcoats off without getting cold.

Wooyoung propped himself up on his arms, legs stretched out on the blanket in front of him, and let his head fall back to the sun. His eyes shut as he sighed, inhaling and smiling at the faint smell of oil in the distance. Beside him, he hears San shift where he’s seated, followed by a sigh, and then an unexpected, though not unpleasant, weight in his lap. His eyes fluttered open to see San curled up on his lap with his eyes closed and with a faint smile.

Like this, he looks gentle and _young_ , almost like a teenager, with his hair falling in and around his eyes and exposing the lightest sliver of his forehead, smooth and creamy and soft. Wooyoung finds he can’t resist, and with the most delicate touch he can manage, he combs his fingers through the soft curls. San _melts_ in his lap as he does, letting out the softest of sighs, relaxing into jelly.

 _Like this_ , San looks beautiful—he was always beautiful, but like this, soaking in the sunlight like some kind of flower finally opening into bloom, he was unreasonable.

With one hand, he sneakily takes a few photos with his phone, silently wishing he had his camera. Wooyoung continues playing with his hair until San is almost purring, _writhing_ , in his lap, and Wooyoung has to bite his lip, turn away, and will the redness of his cheeks to go down. When he turns back to look at him, San’s eyes are already open and watching him. They look a little distant and hazy, as if he were waking from a deep sleep, but no less beautiful than usual.

He stretches, arms above his head, making his shirt rise up around his hips. Wooyoung diverts his eyes, but can’t miss the sharpness of his hip bones or the trail of hair leading down below the waistband of his jeans. In another universe, a confident Wooyoung is placing his lips there, pressing open-mouthed kisses the caramel skin of San’s stomach, tasting it, even; but, in this universe, Wooyoung wants the ground to swallow him whole even just thinking of it.

“Wooyoung,” San says, not in greeting or in question, but as if just saying it because he could. Because he liked the way it sounded on his tongue. Wooyoung liked it, too, much more than he cared to admit, but he’s sure San knew that already.

“Woo,” he says, this time pinching at his side a little, but not enough to hurt. Wooyoung smiles so he knows he’s listening, and it only gets stronger when San giggles.

“Woo, baby, I need to tell you something.”

Wooyoung’s heart, first and foremost, sometimes cannot even handle being called _baby_ by Yeosang and Mingi, who have done it on the rare occasion when he’s either particularly sleepy, homesick or unwell; never has he been called _baby_ by anyone other than his mother in such an open, non-vulnerable position before. He liked it— _loved_ it, even, if the roaring heat on his cheeks and chest meant anything.

“W-what is it?”

There’s a moment where neither of them is speaking, possibly not even breathing, but just staring at one another. That’s not necessarily uncommon, but the tone between them now differs to every time before, because San face is gradually getting closer and closer to his own, by pushing himself up on one hand. Soon, San’s face is directly across and in front of his own; he’s no longer draped in his lap, and the cool air hits his now-exposed thighs with a shiver.

San’s eyes flicker downwards, to his mouth, and Wooyoung feels relatively prepared this time—San is always giving him little cheek kisses, and he won’t let it startle him this time around.

San is propped up on one hand, and the other comes up to cup the side of his neck. He feels overly sensitive—can feel the callouses of his labour but the softness that surrounds it; can feel the puff of breath he releases against the tip of nose, his lips. San tilts his head up the tiniest bit, but there are no lips on his cheek or at the corner of his mouth or on his forehead like those times before.

Instead, there’s a pair pressing against his lips, soft and wet with a taste of vanilla, and maybe it lasts three hours or three seconds or it was all in his head, but when San pulls away, he doesn’t go very far, and presses his kisses into the skin of his throat instead.

“ _Baby,”_ he says again, rougher this, like he’s choking on his own tongue.

He doesn’t bite at his neck, but Wooyoung feels his skin prickle against every kiss placed gently against him. He mustn’t be breathing, because he feels lightheaded, more so than usual than when he’s with San, and the elder must notice. He draws back, eyes staring into his own.

“Baby, breathe,” and Wooyoung does, because he lives to please, and its ragged and rough like he’d just been on a run, but his head clears the tiniest bit—enough for him to realise that the kiss _did_ happen, and it wasn’t a figment of his reality.

“Was-was that okay?”

For the first time Wooyoung hears San _stutter_. Confident and brave San, stuttering because he thinks he’s upset Wooyoung, done something he didn’t _want._ If only he could read his thoughts, understand what he was feeling right now, instead of only being able to see the shock written on his face.

And this must be some kind of role reversal bullshit Wooyoung is too stupid to understand, because from somewhere deep within him, or maybe from San himself, Wooyoung grabs San’s face within both of his hands—softer than San’s ever would be, but no gentler—and kisses him with as much energy and emotion and love that he can.

San is stiff at first, no doubt shocked at Wooyoung’s unbidden confidence, but soon relaxes into; he _melts_. San whimpers, falling into Wooyoung, his arms trailing up his arms, around his neck, where they lock together in a secure embrace.

Wooyoung has no experience kissing beyond the two pecks he’s ever received in his life—one of which was a mere minute ago—so he does what he thinks is right, what _feels_ right.

San is doing that purring thing especially, and it only gets louder when Wooyoung turns his head for a better fit. His own hands disappear from San’s face, down to the hips he so desperately wants to hold, and drags San’s body closer to his. They’re both seated facing each other, but the closer Wooyoung drags him, the more entangled they become.

Soon, San’s tearing away from him, chest heaving and panting and eyes glassy, but props himself up on his knees so he can hover over him, before dropping himself right in Wooyoung’s lap. Wooyoung gasps, but it’s swallowed up by San’s mouth all over again, and he lets his hands slide up the back of the mechanics loose t-shirt. His skin is warm, and San hums into his mouth when he presses him closer, their chests pressing together with each movement. San’s tongue is begging at his mouth, and Wooyoung’s confidence is starting to run out, but he lets him anyway.

It’s his turn to make noises now, it seems, because San drags a moan out of him so loud, that he’s worried the neighbours have heard. His cheeks are red for a whole new reason now, and the fact that San is yanking at the collar of shirt now doesn’t help.

Wooyoung lets him, doesn’t care, wants to give San everything, anything.

He thinks maybe it’s moving too fast, but he doesn’t want to stop. He thinks San ends up ripping the shirt open, too desperate to waste time unbuttoning it, and he’ll probably be annoyed later—but now, he groans again, finding his urgency unfairly attractive. Suddenly, San’s lips are pulled away from his again, and he whines loudly, chasing after him. He succeeds, bites at San’s bottom lip to get him to open up again, but it doesn’t last long.

He’s pushed back gently, and San pecks at his lips repeatedly until Wooyoung feels his back hit the ground. Then, like every gay boy’s wet dream, the beautiful man is crawling up his body, till he’s seated, straddling, his hips and grabbing his hands to hold by his head.

San then proceeds to kiss the shit out of him, till he’s breathless and whimpering, and desperately trying to avoid bucking his hips upwards into him. Eventually, San drags his mouth away, replaces it at his neck. He’s gasping against him, and Wooyoung curls into his touch, whimpering when sharp teeth finally nip at him. There’s a tongue soothing the wound, sucking at the same spot, laving over it. Wooyoung can feel himself starting to shake, whimpering more often than not, before he’s yanking his hands free from San’s hold, and dragging his face back up. He can feel San smiling into it, chuckling just the tiniest bit, but resumes kissing him.

One of San’s now-free hands cradles his neck, fingers massaging into his shoulders as he licks into him; the other roams down his body, before it grasps at the underside of thigh—much thicker than San’s own, but feeling dainty in San’s hands now—and yanks it upward, wraps it around his own waist.

Wooyoung throws his head back when San grinds against him, hard and hot where they’re pressed together. He had known himself to be rock hard in his jeans—it was constricting, almost painful—but he hadn’t expected San to be as turned on as he clearly was.

San, who had had partners before, and plenty of experience, turned on by just _kissing_ Wooyoung.

It spurred confidence and pride within himself, and he continue rolling his hips and forcing them upwards with as much power and rhythm as he could. San whimpered with him, forcing the leg further up his side, closer to him, until they were matching each other’s thrusts.

Their kisses died out, gasping into each other’s mouths instead.

One of Wooyoung’s hands tangles itself into San’s hair, yanking slightly just to see the way San bites his bottom lip. Running on his confidence high, he lets his other hand trace down San’s spine, making the elder shiver, until he slides it into the back pocket of San’s jeans like he’d seen in those cheesy romance movies before.

The reaction is immediate: San groans loudly, grinds against him harder, rougher, and though the denim-on-denim action really limits how much friction they can create, Wooyoung doesn’t want to stop—even to remove the barriers.

He feels like a teenager, but he’s _close._

He’s _close._

He feels like he’s been whimpering this entire time, non-stop just crying into San’s lips, but San isn’t much better. He’s given up trying to kiss him, so instead bites and sucks at Wooyoung’s throat and collarbones, leaving as many marks as he can. On one particularly hard roll of his hips, Wooyoung’s head falls to the side, and his eyes roll into the back of his head.

“I—we _shouldn’t_ ,” San is panting right by his ear, but despite his words, his hips don’t stop.

In fact, San shifts a little so he’s back on his knees, and the change in angle means San has more power, and then they enter an all different ball game.

Wooyoung can’t speak anymore—feels himself choking on his own words, on his tongue, letting out nothing coherent, only breathless little squeaks and the occasional moan. He’s sweaty, can feel a bead of it down his temple, and he can’t really focus on San, but he’s sure the elder isn’t much better.

“ _Fuck,”_ Wooyoung hears him say, and that only gets him harder, if that were even possible and—shit. He was going to come. He was going to _come_ from a bit of teenage grinding, in his _jeans_.

“ _Fuck,”_ he hears again, San’s voice cracking and high in pitch, similar to Wooyoung’s own, and his hips are starting to lose their rhythm.

“I-I,” Wooyoung starts, stops, his own moan cutting him off. San’s face is closer to his again, hand tightening around his thigh, heat tingling even in his toes.

“Woo, baby,” he pants, mouth pressing a wet kiss to his forehead, then another to his mouth.

He lingers there for a little, until neither of them can breathe, and their gasping at each other again. Wooyoung suddenly moves so he can hook his other leg around San’s waist, which the elder immediately catches and drags around himself tighter, and his arms loop around his neck.

He grips tightly into his shirt, the material scrunching up under his hold, but San doesn’t relent. His thrusts, though sloppier now than before, were no less powerful—if anything, they got more so, and if he had a clear head, he’d make a mental note to ask him if he had ever dislocated them.

“San- _San,”_ he begs, almost a squeal, and San swears against him again. “I’m—I’m gonna’ _come_ ,” he says, and this time, the moan that rips from San is animalistic, and he’s pulling back to stare at him in the eyes.

“ _Shit,_ fuck—c’mon baby, _come_ _for_ _me._ ”

And Wooyoung _does._

Its immediate, permission granted and he obeys. He locks around San’s body, hips still working against each other, and his head is thrown back from the force of his orgasm, tightening and then loosening and tightening all over again when San’s hips don’t give up.

He’s whining, louder than before, at the sensitivity and the discomfort in his jeans, and feels San slowing down.

“No! No, no,” he begs, eyes wide, alarmed, and San’s eyes are darker than he’s ever seen them, hungry, like a starved man hunting down his prey. “Don’t stop, please, please, _don’t stop_ —”

And then San is swallowing his words with his mouth and with a groan, hips resuming their hurried dance, until Wooyoung is practically screaming beneath him, his dick that had long since checked out now logging right back on in, half-hard where it’s still trapped in his ruined jeans. San can’t stop swearing against his neck, can’t stop biting it, and he’s sure he’s going to look absolutely mauled later, but he can’t bring himself to regret it—at least, not right now.

When San comes, it’s with a guttural moan, and one last thrust; it’s with a grip on his thighs and his mouth hanging open and eyes squeezed shut as he works through it. It might’ve been the situation in its entirety, or the sensitivity of his dick, or maybe just San’s expression alone—but whatever it was, it sent him over the edge a second time, this orgasm far shorter than the first, but no less powerful.

When he slumps back against the grass, San half falls atop of him, supporting himself on his forearms so he doesn’t drop his entire weight on him. Wooyoung wants to feel every line of him against his body, but he can barely breath as it is, so later, he’ll demand cuddles.

For now, he lets San press soft kisses into his mouth, calm and peaceful compared to the ones they shared moments ago, and for the first time in probably forever, Wooyoung can’t bring himself to feel embarrassed.

“Woo,” San starts, chest still heaving, words made mostly of air. “I really, really like you.”

Ah— _there_ it is.

“I swear it’s not just—it’s not just because of—”

Wooyoung shuts him up with a chaste kiss, “I know, _I know_.”

San kisses him again, softer this time, lingering. He pulls away, only to press one last kiss to his bottom lip.

“We should get you cleaned up,” San says, and Wooyoung nods.

“You too.”

San smiles, “you’re my precious cargo. You’re my priority.”

Of course, San wants Wooyoung to die. 

“C’mon, let’s go.”

He’s tugged to his feet, making a face at how uncomfortable he is in his jeans, and San laughs, slinging an arm around his waist, guiding him back towards the house.

Later, when they’ve showered—separately, to spare Wooyoung’s heart—and have a clean change of clothes, Wooyoung snuzzles up close to San on his bed. There’s a movie playing in the background that they stopped paying attention to, and San is already half asleep. Wooyoung’s not far behind him, eyes lidded and droopy as he traces patterns on San’s bare chest. It’s the first time the elder has been shirtless for an extended period around him, and although he got out of the shower and went to his closet to grab a sleep shirt, Wooyoung had made a whiny little noise in protest. San’s brows had risen to his hairline, looking at the shirt in his hands and then back to Wooyoung’s pouty mouth, before he dropped it.

He had crawled onto the bed and curled under the covers beside him, letting Wooyoung snuggle close in the embrace he so desperately craved after their little…roll round earlier in the day. As San dozed in and out of sleep, and Wooyoung kept playing with his chest, he felt nerves bubble up around his throat. The words were sitting _right there_ on the tip of his tongue, all he had to do was _say them._ And how desperately he wanted to say them before San fell properly asleep, right in his arms.

So, with the tiny ounce of confidence he had left, he pulled San’s cheek towards him, pressing a sleepy kiss to his mouth—because he was allowed to do that now, it seemed. San smiled into it, waking up slightly from his doze.

“Sannie,” he says, the nickname he had used primarily in his head slipping out in the waking life. San’s smiled got bigger, and his eyes fluttered shut.

“Sannie, I like you, too. A lot.”

San rarely smiled with his teeth, but he did now, and it was blinding and beautiful. His arms stretched up and around his neck, dragging him down to his toned chest in a warm, tight embrace.

“I like you so, so much,” he whispered into the skin, letting San kiss his neck; letting San hold him to sleep.

It's in the morning, when San is kissing his forehead and handing him a cup of coffee, that the mechanic whispers into his skin—“Woo, I’m going to _woo_ you.”

It earns him a slap around the head, and Wooyoung just groans into the pillows for five minutes about how ridiculous he sounds and how stupid of a pun that was and how he should be both embarrassed and ashamed of himself.

But he loves it.

Let’s San kiss him anyway.

Wooyoung wakes the next morning to something tickling his neck.

He barely registers it as being the thing that had stirred him, scrunching his face up and pressing it deeper in the pillow. He figured it could’ve been the light coming in through the window, but that normally never bothers him—he usually slept with a lamp left on in his room back home, anyway. The tickling continues, and it gets stronger the more awake he begins to feel, as though the culprit had been made aware.

By the time he feels fully awake, San has his shirt rucked up and is pressing open-mouthed kisses up the column of his spine. It doesn’t tickle quite so much anymore, but when San removes his mouth to pull the shirt back down, to kiss behind his ear, he giggles at the scratchy feeling of San’s emerging stubble. The elder huffs against him, a puff of air tickling more than his lips did.

He half rolls back towards San, until his shoulder softly collides with San’s chest—who has propped himself up on his hand, and leans over him. He looks different like this—eyes sleepy and hair a mess—but no less beautiful. San was exquisite, a true artform, and Wooyoung found himself speechless as his eyes trailed from his face down his tanned beck to his broad shoulders, which can wrap around Wooyoung twice over, past that to his chest, his well-defined pectorals and dark nipples, and his stomach, framed quite nicely by abs that weren’t terrifyingly defined, but enough to leave anyone worth their salt impressed.

“Mornin’,” San says, voice surprisingly deep despite it being the morning.

Wooyoung hums, “good morning, Sannie.”

The elder smiles, eyes fluttering, before he leans down and presses a soft, lingering kiss to Wooyoung’s lips. It gentle and warm and the tiniest bit chapped, but it’s perfect nonetheless.

“God,” San whispers against him, “I’ll never get sick of that.”

Wooyoung purses his lips, turns his head away as his cheeks get hotter. San kisses one of them wetly. “Sick of what?”

“Your cheeks. They’re always so _red._ ”

Wooyoung shoves at his shoulder playfully, but let San crawl into his arms and collapse against his chest, face pressed against his shoulder.

“That’s _your_ fault,” Wooyoung mumbles, “you should take responsibility.”

Wooyoung fiddles with San’s hair, a poor attempt at taming a wild, savage mess that only a shower and hairbrush could fix. San hums against his neck, lips pressing against the skin, but not really kissing.

“Well, good thing you’re _my_ responsibility now,” he declares triumphantly, pulling away to hover over him. Wooyoung feels startled, staring up at him with wide eyes and a racing heart.

“W-what do you mean?” The mechanic smiles, rubbing a thumb along the side of his face, as though he were made of porcelain.

“My baby, my _pretty baby_ ,” San mumbles to himself, closes his eyes almost reverently, and kisses his forehead.

“Y-yours?” Wooyoung asks, hopeful, but full of dread, too. He’s sure he had misunderstood, and San wasn’t after a relationship but more of a casual play thing. He’s sure of it—I mean, _who_ would want him that way, anyway?

The issue Wooyoung has is that he’s never been in a relationship before. This leads to multiple issues he finds himself contemplating in regard to the recent progress between him and San.

The first being: are they even _in_ a relationship? Neither of them has said anything—not even _uttered_ the word relationship since knowing each other—so does Wooyoung even have to _worry_ about all the other things he’s contemplating? Probably not, but he does anyway, because he’s also a _virgin,_ and he isn’t entirely sure San’s picked up on that or not. Heck, he was _basically_ his first kiss—at least, the first person to kiss him who made it _count_ , and did it because they liked him and not because they were _curious._

Plus, San was the first person to…to make him have an _orgasm,_ and it was embarrassing—in his favourite jeans, too, which were a bitch to get clean, but now the response is immediate and every time I tries to wear them, he just _can’t_. They’re so _tight_ and they remind him of San’s hands on him and how they gripped his hips and thighs and how he made his legs shake in pleasure.

 _Shit,_ Wooyoung thought the image of San leaning over a car and fixing it was hot, but the image of San above him, pinning his hands down the way he had? Wooyoung has been ruined forever. Or maybe his inner hoe has just been awakened, exposed— _whatever._

Either way, Wooyoung needs to tell San multiple things.

First, that he isn’t a quick lay—he isn’t any kind of lay, since he isn’t going to lie anywhere for quite a while unless it’s to strictly sleep. He’s happy to get jiggy with it on the back lawn if it’s just some over the clothes business, but for his first time, he wants to be absolutely sure he’s not rushing into it. Not that he thinks San is like that, anyway, but insecurity doesn’t go away overnight, and confidence isn’t something you learn in five minutes, either.

Secondly, as an extension of this, he needs to tell San that he’s a _virgin_ , so he’s lacking confidence in every single department and that he should not take this as a reflection of his attraction to him, but rather the opposite: he is so attracted that he has completely lost control of all functional skills and brain control.

That’s the third thing: _San, I am attracted to you. I want to be your boyfriend. I want you to keep calling me baby and pretty and cuddle me at night and give me kisses when we wake up and make me coffee and bring it to me so I can lie in bed for an extra five minutes. Thank you._

But _shit_ —how was he supposed to say _that_?

Turns out, he didn’t really _need_ to.

“Mine. If you’ll have me.” San watches him serious, not releasing his gaze and not letting him look away. He attempts to, once, but San grips both sides of his face between his hands and forces him to stare him deep in the eyes.

“Wooyoung, can I be yours?”

Wooyoung swallows, the flood of doubt starting to evaporate. “As in—I mean you want—you want _me_ to be your boyfriend?”

San bites his lip, appearing almost _shy,_ but nods. Wooyoung, as always, turns a scarlet red—or rather, he just turns even _redder_ , because his blush from earlier had never really gone away.

He swallows, throat dry, “o-okay. Yes.”

San beams—face lighting up like Wooyoung had never seen it before. The hug he’s dragged into is sudden and fast and the love that’s pressed into him is done fiercely, brimming at the edges and seams, bursting and spilling over.

In the next moment Wooyoung is being ravished by San’s kiss—morning breath be damned.

Wooyoung had spent a lot of time at San and Hongjoong’s, but in that time, he had never met the man Hongjoong was supposedly seeing.

He had plenty of bruises to show for it—never had Wooyoung seen someone with such a fetish for hickeys before, but he wasn’t one to judge, not with the bruises he had lacing his own hips from San’s trailing mouth and hands. But, it seemed times were changing, because when Hongjoong slipped into the garage from the back entrance, talking to someone in way too flirty manner to be merely a _friend_ , Wooyoung realised that he was finally going to meet the ominous _beau_.

Hongjoong was a strange character, but a loveable one; he was relatively closed-off, at least to Wooyoung at first, but he had quickly opened up after he had started seeing him almost every day for the past month or so. Even though they were friends, there was a certain level of _closeness_ that came with time. Hearing Hongjoong fucking said beau into oblivion almost every night was not at the level they were at just yet.

See, he hears Yeosang and Mingi going at it almost all the time, and it doesn’t really bother him anymore—he puts on a movie or some music and goes the fuck to sleep. Might bang the wall if Yeosang gets a little too frisky, but otherwise, they’re relatively vanilla and keep their dicks to themselves and Wooyoung’s never found a condom in the kitchen bin so, he’s happy.

Hongjoong, however: he is _frisky._

San has told him numerous stories about the amount of silk ties he has, the harnesses and exorbitant number of toys he has stashed under his bed. Not that Wooyoung is judging—he, too, has a collection of toys he’s rather fond of—but San explained it in such a way that made it seem astronomical. Which didn’t make a whole of sense, because much like Wooyoung himself, Hongjoong seemed so _innocent._

Now, Wooyoung was innocent in the sense that he’d never had a real human penis inside of his body, nor had he ever had his real, human penis inside anyone else. Truthfully, his penis hadn’t even been that close to San—the only contact they’d had between each other was their backyard romp, which, if he thought about it for too long, only made him hard. Whenever he came into the house he had to pass the backyard, which only acted as a reminder of what they’d done there.

Hongjoong rounds the corner and smiles brightly, waving at him from across the workbench. “Woo! I want to introduce you to my boyfriend! This is—” Wooyoung is certain that Hongjoong keeps speaking, but his brain has cut him off because—because. That’s—

“Jung Wooyoung?”

“Mr Park?”

“Wait—” Hongjoong interjects, hands raised in confusion as he looks between the two of them. Wooyoung tries to avoid his teachers, but can’t really draw them away from the huge hickey on his neck. It was almost _black,_ and he could still see the indent of Hongjoong’s teeth in the flesh. He was also very, very rumpled. And Hongjoong—well, Hongjoong _did_ look like he’d conquered something, but now he just looked plain panicked.

“ _Mr_ Park?” Hongjoong asks Seonghwa now, who nods sheepishly, biting his lip.

“Jung Wooyoung, I uh—”

Wooyoung screeches a little, “can we—can we _please_ , uh, like, can we not do this now? I—” Wooyoung turns to San, who takes pity on him. Wooyoung’s chest in heaving in panic, embarrassment, pure awkwardness and thankfully San knows him well enough now to be able to read that.

“’Hwa, ‘Youngie has class. With _you,_ mind you. In half an hour.” Seonghwa’s eyes widen as he fumbles with his phone, and Wooyoung turns his head into San’s chest when Hongjoong’s hand not so sneakily sneaks into the back of his jeans. He _did_ look casual, but no more so than he usually did when doing his lectures, but never had Wooyoung ever seen Seonghwa look so… _rumpled._

“Right,” Seonghwa says, diverting his eyes away from Wooyoung, before fishing out his car keys. “Wooyoung, did you need—”

“I’ll drive him, you go ahead,” San interrupts again, and Wooyoung is grateful for the supporting hand that weaves around his waist. With a final nod, almost apologetic in nature, Seonghwa is slipping out in the carpark, followed closely by Hongjoong.

When Hongjoong returns, his lips are a little red again as he ruffles a hand through his hair. There’s a moment of silence between them before San is bursting out into peels of laughter.

Class was awkward, but he managed to avoid eye contact with Seonghwa for the majority of it. He took some of his best notes the entire semester because he actually listened to what he was saying, rather than falling asleep, as usual, in the back of the room.

Upon dismissal, more than half the class was already out the lecturer theatres doors, most of them either disappearing for semester break early, or panicking about the collection due in three days. Wooyoung was in the latter of those two categories, but instead of panicking outwardly, he procrastinated further by slowly packing away his notebook and pen. He ignored Seonghwa’s presence at the front of the room as best he could, but nothing could make the elders piercing gaze any less obvious.

Even so, even when he stood at his seat, he diverted his eyes to the floor—he didn’t need Seonghwa asking him about his progress on the project, whether he be asking as his friend _or_ teacher. Just as he was halfway up the steps to the exit, the door opens and a familiar dark-headed man bobs in.

“S-San?” His boyfriend, dressed in his usual leather and ripped jeans, having changed since dropping him off earlier, smiles brightly—a juxtaposition, as always.

“Baby!” San gets up close to him, either unaware or simply uncaring of the other students still exiting the theatre, and grabs his face in his hands and kisses him. It’s chaste but passionate, lasting all but five seconds before he pulls away. He can hear a few snickers and giggles from people passing by to the door, and his cheeks are flooded with red, but he pushes it aside as San laughs himself.

“Missed you,” he whispers, his lips brushing against Wooyoung’s own, and this time Wooyoung pushes forwards on his toes to meet his lips again.

This kiss is softer, not quite as desperate, a little _I missed you, too._ He pulls away, but lets his hands weave around San’s neck, and lets his cheek settle there, too. San rests his cheek against the top of his hand, arms wrapping around his waist and holding his back close to him.

“Seonghwa,” San says, amusement in his voice. Wooyoung watches the way the man in question scans the room, slightly panicked, before they settle on San—he looks irritated, but in a fond sort of way.

“I’ve told you a million times, San,” Seonghwa says, already making his way up to the steps towards them, satchel over his shoulder. “It’s Mr Park when you’re in my place of employment.”

San snorts, and the vibrations of it tickle Wooyoung’s nose. “I am absolutely never going to call you Mr Park. I think you’d like it too much.” The last part makes Seonghwa’s cheeks a vibrant shade of red, somewhat similar to Wooyoung’s own, perhaps even _redder_. His reaction would’ve been cute if Wooyoung hadn’t known what he was referring to: a few nights ago, Wooyoung had stayed over at San’s place again, only to be woken up (still wrapped in San’s strong arms, his bare chest pressed along the length of his back, _delicious_ lips still a little red and swollen and _bitten)_ by Hongjoong’s voice high pitched and cracking on a _Mr Park!_ In the room next door.

Both Wooyoung and San had to muffle their laughter into each other’s skin and pillows until the elder grabbed his headphones off the bedside table, giving one to Wooyoung and keeping the other for himself. He played some low-tempo instrumental music until the both of them fell asleep, only to be woken up again by San kissing at his bare shoulder. If then he had known the _Mr Park_ meant _this_ Mr Park, he doesn’t think he’d have been laughing— _or_ sleeping, for that matter.

Seonghwa swore under his breath, but managed to contain whatever else he wanted to say by turning his attention to Wooyoung, who still had his head tucked into the curve of San’s neck. At some point, he had tightened his arms around him, snuggling that much closer. He really did love that overtly masculine scent that always clung to him.

“Woo,” Seonghwa starts, tone changing to something he knew far too well. “How is your project coming? I noticed that you were the only one who didn’t book a consult with me this week.”

There it was: Seonghwa’s disappointed and concerned voice. Wooyoung had heard it on multiple occasions, but not with him. He used it a lot on the other students, and maybe he had used it with Wooyoung back in his first year, but it was such a distant memory now that he can’t even remember what it had been about.

“I—It’ll be handed in on time, I promise, Mr Park!”

Before either San or Seonghwa could stop him, Wooyoung was clambering up the remaining stairs and was out the door. He had hoped that the confrontation would maybe force some inspiration out of him, but instead, he just felt himself sink further into distraction and procrastination. He had less than a week to produce some of his best work—and he hadn’t even started it, yet.

It’s a well-established fact that Wooyoung gets embarrassed easily.

His cheeks will turn an alarming shade of red and his hands will get all clammy and his ears will burn so hot they would almost appear purple. Some often tell him that his reactions are exaggerated, that the things he blushes and stutters over aren’t actually that embarrassing. And for the most part, those people are probably right.

But, since he’s currently hearing his university photography lecturer cry and beg in the next room over, he thinks his humiliation is warranted.

While Wooyoung struggled to form any kind of coherence, San had only snickered, telling him that ‘Seonghwa is getting the dicking of his _life_ in there,’ while pointing to Hongjoong’s bedroom over his shoulder with his thumb.

Wooyoung had even suggested _leaving_ , but San shook his head and refused. ‘I _told_ Hongjoong I was having you over for dinner tonight. This is all _his_ doing.”

San had pursed his lips and looked off into the distance contemplatively. ‘I think Seonghwa may get off on it, or something,” he explained with a mumble. Beside him, Wooyoung groaned, letting his forehead drop to his boyfriends’ shoulder. ‘ _Please,_ San, let’s not talk about their kinks.”

Just as Wooyoung was able to untangle himself from San’s hold to turn the volume up, Seonghwa lets out a scream that is _pornographic_ , and he tenses up in San’s arms instead. He splutters, then when Seonghwa lets out another similar sound in the next heartbeat, he finds himself choking on his own tongue.

In the very next moment, San’s mouth is by his ear, and he nips playfully at his lobe. ‘Seonghwa’s noises getting you hot, baby?’

Wooyoung makes a noise of protest, only for it be swallowed up by the sound of thump against a wall and San’s mouth latching on to his own. San swallows the gasp he lets out, one hand tangled in his hair at the back of his head, and the other grasping onto his hip. His fingers dance with the sliver of skin that is exposed by his shirt riding up, and his fingers are rough enough to raise goosebumbs on his skin. He feels over sensitive as San kisses him slow and languid, the hand on the back of his head moving down to his neck, massaging the tenseness there as his tongue licks inside his mouth.

Wooyoung feels weird, doing this here out in the open of the living room, with an orchestra of whining and screaming and thumping not even ten metres away playing in the background. San doesn’t seem to mind, but when Seonghwa lets out another loud yelp, followed by one of Hongjoong’s dark, humourless chuckles, he smiles against his mouth.

He pulls away, biting at his bottom lip, before trailing his lips down the curve of his neck. Wooyoung is starting to sweat, barely notices the way he’s starting to roll his hips against the air, silently begging for San to drag them closer together.

They hadn’t done anything together since their romp in the garden last week, other than kissing, of course, and right now the ache in his jeans was nothing but a painful—and embarrassing—reminder of that.

As if reading his mind, San drags him forwards, and _lifts,_ so that this time Wooyoung is straddling him. Wooyoung cries out—loud enough for San to chuckle darkly against his neck, nip sharply with his teeth there, but not loud enough to compete with Seonghwa’s.

Now, Wooyoung realistically considers Seonghwa a sort-of-friend first, _then_ his lecturer, but the status of _boyfriend of my boyfriend’s best friend_ doesn’t remove the fact that Seonghwa would be marking his photography collection when he hands it in in two days ( _if_ he hands it in, realistically. He still hasn’t started).

San pulls away from his neck, seemingly satisfied with what he had left there, and relaxes back against the couch, head falling to rest on the back of it. Wooyoung whimpers slightly at the lack of attention, but San’s hands find purchase on his hips, and guides them to move with more ferocity, and more finesse.

San rolls his hips with him at first, their clothed crotches meeting in the middle much like the other week, playing with the fire Wooyoung so rarely bothered to touch. Soon, though, San stopped moving all together, tapping his fingers on Wooyoung’s hips, indicating for him to do the work _alone._ At this point, San _was_ hard, but not as desperate as Wooyoung was feeling.

He wasn’t sure what was coming over him—one minute, he was sitting in shame hearing his teacher getting quote, _fucked_ , and in the next, he’s lost all control of his senses, and it’s like an out of body experience watching his hands trail from where they’re rested on the couch by San’s head, to his waistband. As his hips continue to grind, Wooyoung tries desperately to undo the button on San’s jeans, then the zipper. He’s too focused on the task at hand to notice San’s eyebrow raising, the way he gets a bit harder from watching how desperate he’s become.

When he succeeds, Wooyoung presses forwards, their lips meeting in a hungry, far too desperate of a kiss. It’s a mess of teeth and tongue, and Wooyoung lets out a choke when Seonghwa cries out again. Seonghwa and Hongjoong had been at it for a while now, and Wooyoung would be lying if he said he wasn’t the tiniest bit jealous.

As awkward and humiliating as it was, Seonghwa really _was_ getting the dicking of his life—and _shit,_ Wooyoung, a virgin, wouldn’t mind experiencing that either. He regrets that thought the second he has it, because then he’s imagining San leaning over him, shirtless and sweating, gasping for breath and he fucks into him slow and deep and rough. He imagines that San would press wet, open-mouthed kisses against his neck and collarbones, would bend one of his legs up and over his shoulder so he could press in even closer, would whisper filthy but adoring words in time with each of his thrusts and—

 _Fuck,_ Wooyoung shouldn’t be getting _this_ worked up _this_ quickly.

San must see it, too, because when as he’s undoing his own jeans, desperate to find some relief, San is biting his lip and his eyes are dark and hungry. When he can’t get the button popped without moving his hips, Wooyoung lets out a frustrated whine, only to feel his hands pushed aside and replaced by San’s own. Once his jeans are unzipped, San’s hands move to his back, push down past his jeans to grip his ass, force his hips back in to resume their frantic pace.

Wooyoung’s eyes roll back in his head at the new friction, so different now that there was no denim restraining his movement. He could, most definitely, come from this—come _like_ this. He knew _that_ from experience, as did San, who was still watching him as though he were the most exotic piece of fruit there ever was. Wooyoung’s hands were gripping his shoulders tight, refusing to let go in fear of losing his rhythm.

Despite his desperation, however, he was well aware of where they were—was aware that Seonghwa’s noises were getting higher and higher in pitch, and surely, that meant he was _close,_ and Hongjoong didn’t have a bathroom attached to his bedroom like San did. He knew that when they were done, one or both of them would emerge from the bedroom to shower or at least get a cloth or some water, and Wooyoung didn’t want to be found in such a compromising position. Especially not by his teacher.

So, to express such distress, but still unable to find words, he lets out a pitiful whine, one that sounded more pained than pleasured. It got the exact reaction he was hoping for: San’s hips and hands stopped instantly, and he sat up on the couch, face nearing Wooyoung’s. The hunger definitely hadn’t dissolved, but it was overpowered by concern now. It was _cute_. It made Wooyoung feel special—his heart fluttered, but his dick still ached.

‘Woo, Baby? What’s wrong? Too much?’

Wooyoung shakes his head frantically, ‘no! No, it’s—it’s perfect. I just,’ he darts his eyes to Hongjoong’s bedroom door, and San immediately understands, and suddenly smirking.

‘You embarrassed baby?’ Wooyoung doesn’t need to nod; San already knows. ‘But you were so close to coming,’ he continues in a whisper, his breath hot against his cheek when he exhales.

His mouth trails down, just barely touching his skin, before it stops near his ear. His hands, once stilled, now moved again, around to his front where they grasped at the open fly of his jeans, tugging on the denim just slightly. Wooyoung whimpers, and it makes him realise the silence coming from the bedroom—it was as if a switch had been turned off, and Wooyoung realises that they were finally, finally done, and that his nightmare was going to come true.

In the next second, Wooyoung’s hand flew up to his mouth, biting down on his own skin to silence himself, as San’s pulled him free from his underwear and his wrapped around his cock. He needn’t look down at himself to see how red and leaking he was—he could _feel_ it—but his eyes watching Hongjoong’s door as San’s thumb swiped over the head, playing with the wetness there, dipping in _just_ slightly.

He bites down harder, willing Hongjoong and San to forego aftercare.

San was truly evil, moving his hand rapidly up and down his cock in a practiced, hurried movement, the glide slick and noisy. He didn’t want to come like this: on San’s vintage couch sitting in his lap, with his best friend and his teacher in the next room over, San’s own cock nudging against his hip.

Suddenly one of San’s hands is latching onto his chin, dragging his face down and eyes away from the door. He’s kissed messily for a chaste second, before San releases his lips, but not his chin.

‘Eyes on me baby,’ he whispers, ‘want your eyes on me when I make you come.’

Wooyoung whimpers, much too loudly, and he only makes the sound again when he hears San’s _fuck_ under his breath. Then, two of San’s fingers are pressing against his lips, and Wooyoung doesn’t hesitate to suck them into his mouth, tongue wrapping around them and slurping messily. He's drooling, can feel it around the corners of his mouth, but he makes less noise like this than without the fingers.

San moans, but bites it away with his lips. ‘So gorgeous,’ he mumbles, more so to himself. ‘ _Fuck,_ you’re perfect,’ he continues, and Wooyoung sucks his fingers harder, feels San’s hand on him tighten, move quicker.

His hips stutter in his grip, fucking up into the circle of San’s hand, and he should feel more ashamed, more embarrassed, by the fact that he had tried to stop this—take it to San’s bedroom, _anything,_ but once again, San put an end to his fear, his humiliation.

‘Can’t believe you’re going to come like this, from hearing Hwa getting _fucked_ ,’ he grunts, thrusting his own hips to brush his cock against Wooyoung’s hip.

‘So sexy, Baby, the best fucking thing— _shit_ ,’ he presses a third finger into his mouth, and Wooyoung moans around them, sucking desperately, hips moving without rhythm now.

He’s so fucking close, can barely believe that for the first time in his life someone else is touching him like this. The only person to ever jerk him off is _himself_ , and this will surely hit him later in a new, expected rush of embarrassment, but right now, the humiliation is slightly…well he feels… _well._ He hates to admit it, but maybe San was _right._

Hearing Seonghwa getting fucked—getting pleasured like _that_ —got him into this mess. It’s not that it was Seonghwa— _no,_ if he thought about that for too long he’d surely get sick—but rather the _noises_ , the fact that it led him think about being in that position himself. _That’s_ what got him hot. The wet sound San’s hand makes on his cock is filthy, but only spurs his movements on further.

‘Talk to me,’ San says, slowly his hand the tiniest amount.

The fear of Hongjoong or Seonghwa leaving their room is long gone now, brain too foggy with desire to have any concern other than the concern of not getting to come _soon._ Wooyoung lets San’s fingers pop out of his mouth, presses a kiss to the wet tips of them, and he’s gasping.

‘’maginin’ you fucking me,’ he explains, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth, eyes rolling back. ‘’magine you’d hold me down, fuck me hard, slow—make me _beg,_ ’ he explains, voice cracking on the last syllable as San quickens his pace again with a curse.

‘My-my legs over-o-over your sh- _shit,_ shoulders,’ he’s gasping, can barely _breathe_ , ‘then,’ he stops, has to swallow, wet his lips. ‘—then you’d make me ride you, sit-sit on your f-fat cock, _fuck,_ ’ he whimpers, high in pitch, ‘fuck, you’d be so _deep_ , fuck—San, please, wanna’ come, wanna _come_ ,’ he’s babbling, his voice is cracking and he’s sweating and desperate, and with a final swear, San increases the speed of his hand, twisting on the upstroke, and with his other hand, rubs the palm in a fast and repetitive circular motion on the head of his cock with an evil smirk, and in the next second, Wooyoung’s coming.

He comes—hard, powerful, eyes flashing white then black and he’s tensing up from his toes to his shoulders, and he can feel the way San’s hand works him through it, while the other catches his release. His mouth is open in a silent cry as he spasms, and he lurches forwards, hands either side of San’s head on the couch as his high deflates.

But San’s palm doesn’t stop its rubbing; the flat of it continuously rubbing circles, before he switches to playing with the oversensitive head with his fingers, until Wooyoung is jerking, whimpering, and swatting his hands away. He’s aware of San’s painfully hard cock against his hip, but he's reminded of where they are, once again, when his eyes begin to clear and hearing returns to him.

‘T-take me to your room, Sannie,’ he says, still panting through his high. With a growl, San’s hands—still sticky with come—grab his ass and lifts him from his lap, holds him, and carries him down the hall to the bedroom.

It's much later, when the entire house is silent and San and Wooyoung are wrapped around each other in the formers bed, when Wooyoung finds his confidence again. He had been placed so gently on the bed by San, where he only had to cup his erection through his underwear for the elder to come.

Now, with his back pressed against San’s chest, and the elder has his arm wrapped around his front, Wooyoung can wrap his hands around the strong forearm cradling his chest. San’s head is placed gently over his shoulder, kissing his neck and cheek every so often with the lightest of touches.

“Sannie?”

The man in question hums, his arm tightening around his body ever so slightly to indicate that he was listening, and not entirely distracted by the soft skin behind Wooyoung’s ear.

“I—I need to tell you something,” he explains, voice suddenly quiet.

He was nervous, of _course_ he was—he _was_ Wooyoung, after all—but he knew San would never judge him for something like this. San, on the outside, looked a little scary and intimidating with his dark eyes, big arms, and penchant for wearing ripped t-shirts covered in grease. It also didn’t help that he had an angry looking resting face—which Wooyoung loved more than anything, as it was just _that_ much on the side of sexy. But, those things didn’t matter, because Wooyoung had learned to look past his sometimes-cocky aura and intimidating physical appearance, and knew him to be as soft and tender and attentive as a newborn kitten.

“I just want you to know that I’m—I’ve never done this before.”

San doesn’t say anything for a moment, and Wooyoung fears he mightn’t have heard him when San clears his throat. “What do you mean?” There’s hesitancy in his voice, as if he knows exactly where this is going but is refusing to speculate.

“I mean that…I mean that I’m a virgin.”

The words sound silly when said out loud. He isn’t ashamed of it; not really. He knows virginity isn’t entirely _real_ and is merely a construct to shame those who have either lost it or those who have yet, which made absolutely no sense, but he also didn’t want to have sex with someone for the first time who wasn’t willing to be patient or loving or caring or _give_ a shit about him the next morning. Behind him, San swears—loudly, too, but mostly to himself. It makes Wooyoung flinch anyway, both from the ferocity of it as well as the suddenness.

“You—but—but—”

For the first time since Wooyoung had met San, the elder was left speechless. It kind of made his heart flutter, to be honest, knowing he made him this way. San’s cheeks were red, and he looked so _shy_.

“You’ve done other things though, right?” He asks, sounding a little panicked. Wooyoung cocks his head, not fully registering what he means.

“The garden. Tonight, on the couch?”

San presses, rolling Wooyoung’s body a bit so that they’re facing each other a little more. Now Wooyoung understood, and his cheeks were pink because of it: the reminder of what they had done together, only twice now, but both in risqué locations. Maybe Wooyoung has a kink he didn’t really know about.

He shakes his head, unable to find his voice, and San swears again. His eyes are filled with panic.

“Fuck, _Woo!_ You’re joking, right?”

His eyes scan across his face, wavering, shutting for a few seconds when he doesn’t find what he’s looking for.

“God, baby—Pretty, I am _so_ sorry.”

Wooyoung pulls his face back, eyebrows furrowed. “Sorry? For _What?_ ”

“They—we—we rushed it! I shouldn’t have been so _pushy!_ Fucking, _God,_ you deserved something _romantic—”_

Wooyoung drags San’s blabbering mouth down to his, stealing his voice with his lips and tongue. San’s immediately silent, and although it feels hesitant, he does kiss back.

“But you _wanted_ me,” he whispers, refusing to look away from San’s eyes when he pulls away.

“No one’s _ever_ wanted me. It was perfect, Sannie. _You_ were _perfect._ ”

It softens him a little; Wooyoung can see the way his shoulders sag in relief, but he still feels tight and tense. “But it should’ve been romantic, Woo,” San says, dropping his forehead on his shoulder.

Wooyoung huffs a little laugh, kissing his temple. “but it _was._ I felt so cherished, Sannie.”

San is a little off for the rest of the night, but come morning, he’s pressing kisses to his eyelids to chase the red to his cheeks.

Wooyoung thinks he knows what Seonghwa meant by making something marvellous seem mundane, and something mundane seem marvellous. 

It was incredible, really—how a moment made up of little nothings could accumulate to something as large as this. San not exactly ignoring him, but not paying attention either; too focused on the bike in front of him to notice Wooyoung had his camera out.

Through a viewfinder San looked different; slimmer maybe, shoulders not quite so broad, but still the same San Wooyoung had grown to adore.

As he worked, San still had a small smile, even if it didn’t fully reach his eyes. Or, perhaps it did, but was overshadowed by the tenacity and concentration that found home there, too.

San was a peculiar person—not because of the way he seemed to have nine different personalities, a strong and distinct line between every single one of them, this hard versus soft persona that was neither fake or true, but rather a concoction of all the people he had met, all the places he had been, and all the things he had been taught; he was neither one thing or all of these things, but rather someone who could not be quite placed—but because he didn’t let any of these things change him.

Wooyoung found him fascinating in the same way he found the engine of a vintage car fascinating—he didn’t understand it, couldn’t rationalise how it was any different, and why such a difference was so confronting, but it was beautiful and unique and stood out from the rest as though it were in an entirely different ballgame.

Which San was.

He was unlike anyone he had ever met before. From his profession to his mannerisms to the way that he talked to the fact that for all intents and purposes, except handwriting, he was ambidextrous. This planet didn’t deserve someone quite like Choi San, but since he was here—a miracle, a majestic feat of heavenly power, surely—Wooyoung swore to himself that he would do all he could to prove him wrong.

Prove to him that he wasn’t just a shy, irrelevant boy who had appeared out of nowhere; but a _shy, irrelevant boy who appeared out of nowhere, for a reason._

San’s hands were covered in grease, as they always were, and his knuckles were bruised and scabbed from the way they’d smash against hoods and metals of the machines he worked on, but beneath it, Wooyoung knew his skin to be soft. It was smooth, speckled with spots and the tiniest freckles, and truly, it was impossible that San was not carved from heavens marble.

Through a viewfinder, San looked different, but really everything was the same.

Wooyoung pressed the shutter in quick successions, the sound making the elder look up from the bike in confusion—Wooyoung captured the moments shared between them, caught between the lenses and immortalised, another little nothing moment.

The series of photos showed San’s initial confusion and shock translate into one of his most glorious smiles, where it pulled at the corners of his eyes and mouth and exposed all his teeth, deep lines of happiness at all his edges, dimples in his cheeks deep enough to store a lot of this love.

San removed his hands from the bike and the time lapses between the snapshots showed the way he edged around the bike towards him, grease-covered hands reaching out towards Wooyoung, who was hidden—a secret—on the leather armchair San had brought in from the main house.

Wooyoung had been laughing, but that could not be seen, but San was laughing too, his eyes little crescent moons.

The photos stopped, and the final one was blurry and shot at an odd angle, but was Wooyoung’s favourite of them all. In it, San’s face was close to the lens, hands up to his elbows hidden from the viewfinder, but it was clear that he was leaning in for a kiss.

Up this close, it was easy to see the grease smeared around his face; the war paint of his profession that far too many had turned their nose up at, that Wooyoung hated the taste of but loved San’s taste of more.

He remembers when he had let the camera drop and swing around his neck, when San had taken his face between his dirty hands and had kissed him through their laughter.

These little moments were not captured not because they couldn’t be but because Wooyoung didn’t want them to. San looked different through a viewfinder—he would say _well, you found it,_ and Wooyoung wouldn’t disagree, but maybe if it could find the view of San’s soul, too, then maybe Wooyoung would love photography more than he did this man.

The most powerful piece of art Wooyoung would ever create would be the one that he sacrificed.

Wooyoung had had, almost entirely, every first with San. And now, he found himself ticking off another.

San slipped into the bath behind him. The suds were bubbled high, so much so that they covered Wooyoung’s body up until his chest, but he still curled his legs up and tucked his chin. He slipped the tiniest bit forward, feeling San’s feet stepping either side of his body—much smaller than San’s own—and out of the corner of his eyes, saw the way his veiny hands gripped the edge of the white porcelain.

Wooyoung’s breath caught when he felt San sink into the water behind him, one hand gently tugging at his waist to pull him flush against his chest. Water slopped between them, filling the invisible cracks that separated them. Wooyoung felt the heat of San’s chest more than he did the water, and, if he focused hard enough, could feel the slow, comfortable rise of his chest as he breathed.

San’s hands wrapped around, resting atop his stomach, and Wooyoung allowed himself to sink into his arms. His head resting against San’s shoulder, he felt the elder kiss softly at the side of his face, from his hairline, down to his temple, to the corner of his mouth.

With one finger, San moved his face, so that he could kiss his lips instead—kiss him through a little protesting sound. Through the kiss, Wooyoung sensed San’s smile; and, his joy truly was such a contagious little thing, because Wooyoung felt it, too. Though red-cheeked and shy, Wooyoung opened his eyes and looked at the man that promised to hold him close. He kissed him _back_ , left his eyes wide open.

They were marvellous. They were _mundane._ But shit, _fuck,_ Wooyoung wouldn’t have it any other way.

Wooyoung’s confidence still comes and goes, but the love shared between them stays right where it is.

**Author's Note:**

> yikes. like i said: absolutely not edited, and i did change things around as i was writing it, so if shit doesn't make sense its probably because i forgot to change. i'll edit eventually but its 2am and im tired lmao


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